Victory and Light
by LowkeeWB
Summary: 10 years after Code of Claw, Luxa must take shelter in the Overland, accompanied by Gregor. Although they know their time together there will be limited, they are drawn together once again. The future hangs over them at every turn, daring them to question just how far they will go, and how much they will have to sacrifice. Functions as a sequel to 'The Fate of Many'.
1. Chapter 1 : Falling into Place

**Author's Note: Although this is a sequel to an earlier story, it has been written to be understandable to someone who hasn't read the previous entry.**

 **On a logistical note for newcomers to this website, I recommend using the options bar above this note to adjust your margins and text size. I wrote and edited the story along these parameters and I hope that readers can find a comfortable reading experience.**

 **Enjoy!**

Gregor had let his guard down the moment they had stepped into Central Park. Even in the middle of the night, he knew there were few dangers in the city that rivaled the scene they had just left.

Large-scale war was being fought in the Underland for the first time in ten years, breaking the peace that had been found with his destruction of Sandwich's sword. The cutters and other toxic creatures from the jungle and beyond had finally acted on their eternal hate of the warmbloods. Although the warmbloods and their allies were now fighting as one against the foreign threat, the situation in the Underland was perhaps only marginally better after Gregor had intervened.

Faced with a large force of ants, bees, and snakes amassing near Regalia, Luxa had used her role as Queen as a distraction for the army's last-ditch assault. By splitting the enemy between attacking the Regalian Queen and the unified armies sent to destroy the cutter nests, she had massively improved the chances of the Underland's survival.

She had kept Gregor in the dark about her sacrificial plan, a task made easy because he arrived only the night before the armies marched out. After using his experience in military demolitions to drown the cutter nests with the Waterway, he and Aurora flew back to the palace as soon as the secret had been revealed to him - that Luxa and the Regalian palace was swarmed with enemies seeking her death.

Gregor had almost been too late to assist, but he came in time to shoot his way through a horde of giant bees- and then was attacked by an entire army of twisters right outside of the royal chambers.

Hacking his way out of the hundreds of snakes had been difficult, but now the both of them were here, in Central Park. Luxa had been ordered by Ripred and her council to seek refuge in the Overland while the situation at home stabilized - there had been too many attempts on her life after the forces of Poison entered direct conflict with the allied forces.

Luxa knew the consequences of those assassination attempts more than anyone else. Only a few weeks before Gregor had arrived, she had been blinded and lost many of her royal guards during an ambush near the Font. The rest of them had made a last stand at the palace just a few hours ago. Gregor had seen their bodies lining the hallways as he rushed to her chambers, thinking he was too late.

Whatever resentment had grown in their ten years apart disappeared on reuniting, and Aurora had evacuated them to the entrance beneath Central Park. Leaving most of their things behind, they had climbed together to the surface, Luxa supporting Gregor on his injured leg while Gregor directed themselves without her sight.

It was past midnight, and Gregor was surprised to note that none of the lamps around the entrance were switched on. Even still, there was enough of a glow from the rest of the city to see flakes of snow as they drifted down from the sky.

One settled on Luxa's forehead, and she shivered, reminding him once again that she was here, and that she was real.

Gregor intercepted the question on her lips.

"That was snow. It's snowing."

And just before Luxa turned and cocked her head at him, bright lights burst on, and his vision blanked out into white.

Gregor's eyes snapped shut and his tongue clicked, displaying the men that surrounded them. They were armored, some with long-guns, maybe rifles. Others with batons. If they were cops, there wasn't much he could do, but he still tensed up, reaching for a sword that wasn't there.

"Stand down, everybody," somebody called out in an authoritative tone. "That's not human blood on those two, or at least we better hope not."

Gregor opened his eyes to see a very familiar face. The mustachioed Dr. Parry, in front of the ring of armed men.

"How?" Gregor asked.

"Now, now," the British man cautioned. "This is no time for story-telling. It's too cold out."

Gregor still didn't understand, but he trusted the doctor after the man had helped him months ago in the Overland. Without the doctor's kindness, Gregor was sure that both his mental and physical scars would be far more visible.

After making sure that everybody knew that the new arrivals weren't threats, the older man ushered them through the lines of troops in body armor and black uniforms and to a first aid tent. Gregor looked for patches or lettering, but the people who had surrounded the only open entrance to the Underland were entirely unmarked.

"You look knackered," Dr. Parry said, inspecting Gregor's eyes one-by-one with a penlight and then checking all over his body.

"You've got cuts, contusions, and quite a few calluses," the doctor said. "But you'll be all right, after- Oh, what's this?"

Dr. Parry had found Gregor's left knee. It was swollen and obviously painful to the touch, the combined results from a rockslide and a snake attack.

"We'll need to visit the clinic for this one, but other than the knee, you've a simple case of what we doctors call 'really bloody tired' syndrome."

Gregor couldn't help but laugh. It let off the tension after what had been a really terrible day.

"And how about you?" Dr. Parry asked Luxa, who had been absolutely silent up till then. "Any complaints?"

"No, I can not complain."

The doctor nodded dismissively. He didn't meant to be rude, but what the patient reported was only part of the examination. The next part was physical.

"This extreme lightness of the skin... near transparency. And before this business with your eyes, you had purple pupils? No, more accurately described as violet. Pale hair as well. You fit the description, to the letter."

"What description?" Gregor asked, but Dr. Parry waved him off.

"I shall explain at the clinic. Just one point of clarification first: How long ago were those peepers of yours damaged, Miss Luxa?"

"A matter of weeks," she responded, confused at the question more than offended.

The doctor pondered for a moment.

"We may in fact, be able to restore their function. But I can't promise anything until we arrive at the clinic."

The man gave them both thick, heavy blankets to wrap around themselves before they exited the first aid tent and continued out of the small cluster of tents that had popped up next to the Central Park pedestal.

The blankets were necessary for the few yards in between them and an unmarked white van because the windchill threatened to pierce all the way down to the bone. Underland clothes were not built for New York in the late winter.

The van was nice and warm already, and Dr. Parry sat in the same row of seats as them. The drive wouldn't be long, according to him. They talked hastily about a few things on the way there. Gregor explained what he and Luxa had just been through to while Dr. Parry explained how he had been ordered to New York a few days ago. Luxa was quiet, but Gregor got the sense that she was just trying to listen as hard as possible to the sounds of the city, comparing them to what Gregor had told her long ago.

There was the deep gasoline purr of engines, the gentle squeaking of brakes, the classic over-eager horn-honking of his hometown. They passed one or two bars that had live bands playing, and brief snatches of music passed through the otherwise quiet interior of the van. Gregor noticed Luxa's right hand stroking the fuzzy surface of the seat, and let his hand rest upon hers reassuringly. She turned her hand over so that their palms were touching, and squeezed. There would be a time for words later.

The clinic was in the basement of a multilevel office building, but they didn't go through the lobby. The van proceeded down a wide, well-lit alley. To the right of the loading dock, a ramp led down to windowless metal doors. Gregor knew they weren't going to be dissected in a mad scientist's secret lab or anything like that, but the thought couldn't help but pass by his mind. He hadn't called anyone back home yet, so he hoped he wasn't about to be 'disappeared'.

They entered through the back door and found that the clinic was just a cozy group of medical rooms. Nodding to a sleepy-looking man at a desk, Dr. Parry brought them to a small room filled with diagnostic equipment, including an X-ray, where he took quick exposures of Gregor's knee. They weren't meant for his own use though, because he merely placed them in a folder while Gregor tried to explain how X-rays worked to Luxa.

"In a similar manner to the camera you brought, but with a special coating that only shows a reaction to these 'X' rays?" Luxa tried to guess.

"Yes," Dr. Parry interjected. "That would be pretty accurate, but this one actually uses digital sensors. Where did you hear about the 'coatings'?"

"There is not very much glass-sand in our area of the Underland, but certain inventors have famously tried to capture light using alchemical means."

"That's fascinating," the doctor said. "They really should have more of that kind of thing in the documentation."

"You keep mentioned that you 'read about' things," Gregor pointed out, trying to keep the doctor from evading any longer. "Did somebody write a secret book on Regalia? What were all those guys doing there? What is this place?"

Dr. Parry raised a hand, as if to slow him down.

"That's a lot of questions, there. It'll be easier just to explain how the Underland came to be known to us. As I told you, it is a long story, but it begins in the last century."

* * *

 _The threat of nuclear war in the last century demanded ways to keep the citizenry safe. Massive shelters were excavated under New York, large concrete boxes extending just off of the subway lines. One of these passages had an entrance near Central Park. As time went on and the bombs never dropped, maintenance crews began seeing things. Rats larger than men, giant cockroaches, and more._

 _The reports were passed up the chain of command until someone got the FBI to check it out. Using state-of-the-art sonar equipment, a very extensive cavern system was discovered. When lethally-hostile creatures were discovered as well, the surviving FBI agents refused to investigate further, on the grounds that supernatural occurrences were not in their jurisdiction._

 _Fortunately, there was a quasi-governmental unit just coming into existence who found the supernatural very much in their jurisdiction. As the world became connected through telephone lines and radio waves, it became clear to multiple influential people that Earth was not as mundane as we thought it was. Certifiable proof was being found of portals between worlds, forgotten creatures under New York City, superhuman abilities, and more. Elements from across NATO soon formed a group that would catalog and control these events and keep them safe from Soviet control. By 1991, the group had expanded to more than a hundred countries, expanded by the falling Iron Curtain._

 _Operating in utter secrecy and almost entirely independent of each other, small cells of personnel keep the daily illusion of the normal world going by monitoring abnormalities and shielding them from the public eye in the interest of civic peace._

* * *

"You're saying people in New York know the Underland exists?" Gregor asked.

" _Some_ people, surely," Dr. Parry said. "And more than that, they shared diplomatic connections for some years."

"Never have I heard of such things," Luxa said. "Although the secrecy of my family no longer can shock me."

"I don't think they've communicated with any of the humans for a long time now, but we have a fellow who exchanges notes with a rat quite frequently."

"Ripred?" Gregor asked.

"That might be its name, though I can't say I've met him. All I know is that he's the first rat they caught that didn't try to gnaw their faces off on sight."

"Yeah, he's special like that," Gregor said.

"In any case, this now brings you two up to speed on _why,_ exactly I was waiting for you. Your friend passed a note along the usual channels to expect you at the surface. But may I ask what brings Ms. Luxa above with such haste?"

"She's a refugee," Gregor blurted out, trying to get a good story out. "She's a queen who had to flee for the safety of her and her people."

Dr. Parry nodded. A request for asylum from a political official was sufficient, even if Luxa hadn't said it herself. But he turned to her anyway.

"Anything to add?"

"Regalia has no quarrel with the Overland," Luxa said. "But the two worlds must remain separate."

"I don't think the suits upstairs would have it any other way," Dr. Parry said. "A place for everything and everything in it's place. I'm sure the fellows at Central Park have already secured the entrance behind us."

Gregor felt like the odd one out for wanting to mix the two lives. He didn't want to choose between one or the other. But he kept his mouth shut. He was truly a third party here, not entirely representing the Overland or the Underland.

After documenting Luxa's request for asylum, the doctor began with full medical evaluations, starting with Gregor. His knee just turned out to be severely sprained, so Dr. Parry advised a routine of rest, cold compression, and elevation until it got better.

Inspecting Luxa's eyes, Dr. Parry clucked his tongue.

"Corneal scarring and blanching in the conjunctiva. There are a few things we can do for the short term, but surgery will most likely be needed."

Gregor looked at the Underlander. A bunch of words that she probably didn't understand had been thrown at her, but it looked like 'surgery' clicked.

"Chirurgy?" she asked. "Will it be painful?"

"Quite the opposite," Dr. Parry said. "Medicated drops should provide much relief for now, and then the surgery will use local anesthetic."

Because Dr. Parry seemed to be the only medical guy around, he did everything from getting the two changed into hospital gowns to enclosing Gregor's knee in a frozen wrap.

"Good to see you in one piece, Gregor," the doctor said after he applied the drops into Luxa's eyes.

"You, too, man."

"I'm glad to see you've found her," he added, softly. Although his bristly mustache was stretched into a smile, something seemed very sad about him. Back when Gregor had been recovering in a field hospital for a week, Dr. Parry had shared a similar story of young love lost. It seemed like he hadn't the luck of rejoining yet.

"I'll see you in the morning," Will said.

He turned out the lights as he left, leaving the tiny glow underneath the door as the only sign there were still people awake out there. The doctor had pushed the two hospital beds closer together, and so Gregor reached his hand out from under his blanket, palm up. There was no response from Luxa. It took a while to him realize that she wouldn't be able to see him reaching out to her. He felt stupid all the way until sleep took him.

* * *

 _It was a patrol like any other, weeks after Gregor had killed his first man. This was before the sharpness had really come out in him, but the rest of the platoon was already starting to spread rumors about his 'killer instinct'. He had taken point- the position at the head of their formation- while they proceeded down a dry riverbed. They were halfway down their route, the furthest they would get from base and the furthest they would be from support. He was switched on, watching every movement from the brush around them. He thought he saw something glint for just a split-second, gunmetal reflecting sunlight._

 _An eyeblink, and the riverbed is gone. It's the Jungle, and not the one from the Overland. Even so, he's with the rats again, Lapblood and her mate- he can't remember his name anymore. It's too late to do anything, to say anything as the vines shoot out and seize them all. Gregor is lifted in the air above the flesh-eating plant, its mouth opening wide. But inside, there isn't the pooled acid. It's even worse, a giant white paw swinging a set of claws at him._

 _He feels the black leather rip aside, the metal plates knocked off as the sharp sinks into him. He shuts his eyes in an eternal wince- he's back in the riverbed, back in a more recent war. He tastes dirt in his mouth but doesn't have the time to spit. He can hear the sound barrier broken right beside his ears- the crack of bullets nearly missing him. He was already returning fire, his finger pulling the trigger before he could even think. He would have held it down, would have let the gun keep spitting hot metal, but his rifle didn't have full-auto. To his horror, he realize that his fingers couldn't move at all. Gregor looks at his hand- he's not holding the gun anymore. Its frozen in a death grip, clenched around some object. Without forcing his digits open, Gregor knows what he's holding onto so tight. The single black claw. The only thing that was left. Tonight, the dream ends with that. Not the explosion._

* * *

Gregor woke up at six in the morning and realized he had forgotten to do a whole lot last night. He reached down to where his backpack lay on the floor and found his phone. The first time he had gone down to the Underland, cellphones were unheard of for kids at his age. In the time since, the prices had dropped and the things had become a lot more useful. He activated the plastic-and-glass rectangle, hoping for the best...

And he didn't get it. Ten missed calls from Grace Kent, better known to him as Mom. Thankfully, she stopped leaving voicemails after the first three. He tapped out a message to each member of his family, and made a note to call Mrs. Cormaci.

Until his family woke up and read the messages, Gregor thought he might as well try to fall back to sleep until he caught a glimpse of Luxa's eyes.

The drops had done something to the scarring, but the strange opaque effect still persisted. More importantly, because they were open, Luxa was awake.

"Good morning," Gregor said, relishing the idea that he could wake up and say those words to the woman next to him. Never mind the fact that they were in two separate beds, or that 'good morning' had a different meaning in the Underland, a place without the Sun. It felt like something had returned to him, even if it was unfamiliar and awkward.

"Good morning," Luxa replied. Her voice was a lot like he remembered from long ago, but deeper, and maybe even richer.

She held her lids open with her fingers as Gregor followed Dr. Parry's instructions with the medication. One drop per eye every hour. They had only slept for three hours since their close escape from Regalia, so they were already nodding off the minute after the drops were done. Gregor's mom called at 9 in the morning, rousing him from any more sleep.

"...Hey" he greeted sleepily.

"Gregor, honey, where are you?"

"A clinic in New York. I got back last night."

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine. I don't know when I'll get back," Gregor said honestly. "We're not going back the Underland, though."

"We?" his mom asked. "Who are you talking about? Dad and Lisbeth got back yesterday."

"Luxa," Gregor said. "She needed to leave for a while."

"Oh, Luxa? How is she?" Gregor's mom asked, a certain suggestion hidden in her tone.

"She's... blind right now."

Gregor explained how war had broken out from the Poison forces, and Luxa, as Queen of Regalia, had been a prime target. He left out most of the fighting that led to their escape but all the other details were there.

"So I'll be in New York at least until she's back to normal, at least."

Surprisingly, his mom wasn't let down by that at all. Had she been waiting for Gregor to spend some time away from home? He had to admit that he had spent a lot of time moping around the house after getting back from the war.

An aide of some sort brought in two trays of food, took some vital signs, and then disappeared back into the clinic. After showing Luxa how to use the remote to get the hospital bed into an upright position, Gregor identified the various things that were in breakfast.

"Yogurt is a kind of fermented milk. You're making that face, but it's a lot better than it sounds. Especially with refrigeration."

"Refrigeration?"

"I guess you could call it an electric coldbox."

She took a cautious spoonful of the fruit yogurt into her mouth, and tasted it.

"It is not bad. Not at all as I expected."

"What'd you expect?"

"Rotten milk and bitter fruit."

Breakfast made Gregor realize how much Luxa still had to learn about the world. He had been lucky in Regalia because it was just one city and he was there as a V.I.P, but he was getting the feeling that whatever shadow agency was running the show here probably didn't care enough to manage them too closely.

"What is the Sun like?" Luxa asked suddenly.

Gregor had to think about that for a bit. It was another one of those things he took for granted.

"It's pretty sweet, having a source of light in the sky like that. It can get too hot sometimes, though, or it can burn people's skin after a while."

"Their very skin?"

"More of those invisible rays. Because they're at a high intensity, they get absorbed by the skin and it hurts."

"The Sun does not sound like such a 'sweet' thing after all," Luxa pouted. "I expect I will burst into flames the moment I step outside."

"During winter, it's less direct, but I guess you could use some sunblock or wear a big hat or something," Gregor said. More than burns, he worried about how Luxa might get stares. From far away and with strong light, the veins of her face and arms could be mistaken for tattoos. He didn't want her to feel alienated during her stay in his homeland.

"And what are you staring at, Overlander?" Luxa asked playfully.

"I... uhh..." Gregor stammered, then caught himself. "Wait a second, how could you tell where I was looking?"

"It was mere conjecture," she said, before she started laughing. "And you admitted to it!"

Gregor was about to ask about what made him looking at her such a funny thing when there was a knock on the door.

A woman in a white lab coat and a ponytail walked in, followed by Dr. Parry.

"And you told me this was a clinic, Will!" the woman said to the doctor before turning and greeting the patients.

"It is," Dr. Parry tried to explain. "I mean, most of of time. When we have patients."

"I am an ophthalmologist, or 'eye doctor', if I'm talking to my younger patients," the Doctor greeted. "Dr. Parry thinks he can fix your eyes, and I'm here to make sure that he can."

The woman spoke quickly and with a wide smile. She came off entirely natural.

"You would not perform the chirurgery yourself?" Luxa asked.

"I perform many procedures, including certain eye surgeries. But believe me, Will Parry has a magic touch. They ask for him around the world."

Luxa nodded in assent and an extensive process of measurements began, as well as questions about how the injury happened and how quick treatment occurred.

It apparently all mattered, but the memories were painful for Luxa.

Gregor reached out and this time Luxa took his hand on reflex, squeezing it as she tried to remember exactly how often they had rinsed out her eyes. Then, the doctors tried to identify the chemical used in the attack.

"It sounds alkali to me," the eye doctor said. "What did you see, Will?"

"A solution like lime or lye, processed over countless days inside one of these ants and then used. Definitely alkali."

Gregor didn't know what difference the chemical would have made, but it didn't bother him, so long as Luxa got what she needed from the treatment.

There were a few more measurements taken, but Dr. Parry and the eye doctor left soon afterwards, saying that the operation could actually be performed the next day.

In their shared room, Gregor and Luxa talked about little things for a while, just the elements of polite conversation. They didn't mention the kiss back at the palace, or the hundreds that must have been killed in the newest war that was still ongoing, or even what Gregor had been doing for the past few years as a Marine. In some ways, those thing couldn't matter at the moment.

Luxa talked about Hazard and how he ran the Peace Council between races almost by himself. As a Halflander, many considered him an embodiment of even-mindedness, seeing as two heritages ran in his blood. In previous times, halflanders had served on tribunals as judges and Hazard was respected for his cool head and his ability to empathize and communicate equally among the races.

Gregor tried to explain how Boots had changed, now that she was 13. It was hard to explain it to someone that had only met her at that very young age, but like many children, she had outgrown some things while keeping others. The curiosity and lack of caution stayed strong with her, along with her absurd tolerance for new things.

Just like she had recognized each living thing in the Underland individually and treated them like friends, Boots knew everyone at her school. It was interesting to see which particular group were invited over to their house each day. She had friends from all over.

Other than bathroom breaks, the two of them were practically stuck together, although Luxa spent some of her time out of bed, cautiously feeling her way around the small room and inspecting the pieces of technology that lay around.

Dr. Parry returned that evening with a pizza, carefully holding the steaming box away from his white Oxford shirt.

"The cafeteria upstairs closed down at five," he explained. "So I decided to bring us supper from outside."

Gregor watched as Luxa's eyes widened at the first bite. She had heard about it from him, during the quest for the Bane. They needed to take their mind off of seeing Howard's bond eaten alive in midair by a horde of mites, and Gregor had told her practically every single thing he could remember about his life.

The current situation was nothing like that somber, desperate moment on the boat. He knew it would sound weird, but Gregor just felt good as he watched her. He didn't know why something as basic as seeing her try a food seemed to fill him with delight.

Dr. Parry chuckled, and Gregor broke his eyes from Luxa's face. He was obviously, impossibly, infatuated with her, and it made him feel vulnerable to keep that much in the open.

Dr. Parry pushed on to explain the procedure for tomorrow. Around noon, Luxa would be taken to the operating room, where the damaged, blocked off tissue at the front of Luxa's eyes would be removed and where 'a graft of amniotic membrane would be applied to help recover the cornea'.

"Wait, by amniotic membrane, do you mean..."

Gregor was surprised. He had never heard about anything like that...

"Yes, Gregor. The graft is a heavily processed product derived from donated placentas."

"I have no objections," Luxa said. "In Regalia, great care is taken not to waste certain parts of the afterbirth."

That was also a previously unknown bit of trivia for Gregor, but it also reminded him that he should introduce the concept of 'TMI', in case Luxa was talking with someone who wasn't as professional as the doctor.

"We'll need to keep you under observation for a day afterwards, but you two are free to go after that, just as long as you come for weekly checkups."

Later that night, when the lights were off and they were meant to be sleeping, Gregor felt the fear return. His brief moments of being scared were only minor hindrances since the Underland. He had learned all sorts of tricks to close off those weak emotions, to turn himself to stone or ice and push through the anxiety. It wasn't a healthy way to deal with his troubles, he knew. He could be fearless and stoic but there were also times where it wasn't enough to create a mental barrier. Sometimes it seemed like there was too much uncertainty around Gregor sometimes, as if the very ground he stood on didn't exist.

The danger of giant bees and bugs was gone for them right now, but thousands in the Underland could still be in danger. They didn't have any news on the people who remained behind, but there could still be a lot of fighting going on. How did Luxa feel, knowing that her city was still immersed in war? Come to think of it, he didn't know much about how she felt at all right now. In a way, they were still strangers to each other after 10 years apart. There were things they would keep hidden from each other.

She seemed eager to heal, curious about New York, and somewhat affectionate towards him, but that was only what she showed. They hadn't talked about their feelings or their intentions after they had gotten into a bitter argument the night of his arrival.

It was probably a mutual decision that they remained so ignorant of the truth of themselves for now, contented with wordlessly holding hands. When they talked about the most mundane and superficial elements of their life, they were edging around the giant pit that surrounded Luxa's role as Queen. With just a careless word, they would fall into the tired old problem that had been hounding her: the procurement of an heir. It was so much easier to hold hands and chatter about their own families, to talk about pizzas and taxicabs or the new changes to that one ballgame the Regalians would play on the backs of bats.

He wasn't that scared of the surgery. Dr. Parry had operated on Gregor, and came recommended by experts. He was more scared of how he would look to her. Luxa would run her hand lightly down his face now, but he knew there was an overwhelming weariness in him, a tortured, pained look that he had seen before, in Ripred and Mareth and Hamnet and dozens of other fighters. Maybe it had never left him after Ares.

Lying on his back, staring at the gray ceiling, Gregor had too much time to think. His worries were punctuated only by the sad little murmurs that escaped from Luxa as she slept. The time on his watch wound further and further, from midnight to one to two in the morning. At some point, he fell into sleep.

* * *

 _It was Gregor's first time in a jungle since he was a kid, but this somehow would be far safer than the Underland's jungle. He wasn't with Recon anymore, his new unit was tailored for different kinds of operations. On paper, the unit was there to train and advise a foreign government's federal police._

 _In reality, they had taken the job into their own hands, heading on the hunt themselves. There were guerrillas tucked into every corner of the country, from the highest mountains to the densest thickets. This particular experience came from the densest thickets. Gregor had not taken point this time- the older guys had sharpened their eyes and ears with years of experience and knew the signs better than him._

 _There was reliable evidence that the enemy was operating out of a indigenous village along a river, the information being provided by a resident herself. Gregor's unit had moved out in the deep of night, so as to ambush the enemy at their change of guard. For hours, the world had been shades of night-goggle-green, so when the sign came to hit the ground, he almost couldn't see the enemy patrol ahead of them._

 _What happened next didn't stick in Gregor's head as much. There was some killing, but what was more important was the sight that awaited them after the enemy was dispatched. They approached the village carefully, hoping that there weren't any more threats waiting for them. And there wasn't._

 _Instead, a still-smoking pile sat in the center of the village, charred forms that were unfortunately familiar to him. He had seen gnawers burn at the walls of Regalia, and they had smelled like this. Again, some had sliced. Again, some had poured. And again, bodies were set alight._

 _The enemy had suspected an informant in the village. The survivors explained that the men had lined the entire population up in the center of their home. They shot one out of every five villagers, asking each one if they were the spy. And then, they had burned the dead as an example to the rest of the town._

 _The rest of the squad was disgusted by the sight, but they all looked to see Gregor's reaction. They needed the rookie to show them how to feel, they had been in the shit too long to remember. But Gregor's expression was flat. He had seen it all before, it turned out. He felt all of it as if it was secondhand to him now._

 _But his arm was shaking. He looked down to his hand, and saw his clenched fist. Again, he knew what was held within it, and again, he found that he could not let it go._

When Gregor woke up, the bed next to him was empty.


	2. Chapter 2 : Recovery

When he woke up, the bed next to him was empty. Easing himself out of bed and onto his good leg, Gregor limped to the door. He found an aide in the hallway, who told him that the surgery was already underway. No one had even woken him up when Luxa was rolled out.

Knowing that, there was nothing for him to do but wait. After only a few minutes, there was a knock on the door. A man in a suit entered, alone, being careful to close the door behind himself.

"Hello, Gregor," the man said, running one hand over his bald head. "Do you remember us?"

Gregor started to shake his head, but then he realized the face did look familiar. One of the first people he had seen in the hospital after he survived Saqiq. The guy was part of a group of people that had been asking questions about some footage they had recorded of him in his rager state.

"Al Udeid Air Base, in December. You remember, I'm sure. You S.O.F guys are supposed to be good with those kinds of details."

"What, are you the boss here?" Gregor asked, trying to appear nonchalant.

The guy laughed, and rubbed his bald head again. Gregor figured must be pretty comforting to do that.

"I'm not the boss," he said. "I'm not even the boss in New York. And that boss takes their orders from someone in D.C, too. So really, you and the Underland are only important enough to get me."

It was actually a relief that Gregor's arrival on the scene wasn't actually a national priority.

"There's bigger problems than a city underneath New York?"

"The entire area in question isn't quite centered on New York," the guy corrected. "But yeah, there are bigger problems. Before you ask, they're big enough to need a separate security classification before I could tell you."

"Aliens?" Gregor asked. "Magic? Zombies?"

"My lips are sealed," the man said, but then smirked. "But you got two out of those three correct."

Zombies seemed the least likely, but Gregor kept that to himself.

"So since she's nothing new, you'll just leave her alone, right?"

"Sure, but with a few conditions," the man said. "First, we need a promise from Regalian high command that we can send people we need safe down there."

That made sense to Gregor. If the situation aboveground got rough and they needed to hide somebody, Regalia could be perfect for the job, seeing as the Underland had few entrances and a confusing layout. It was like one of those doomsday bunkers they showed on T.V, except way deeper and well-staffed with soldiers.

"Second, we need monthly briefings from you, given in person at this office. The rat is pretty helpful, but it is understandably difficult to get a steady stream of good intel from him."

Gregor nodded. It wouldn't be that hard to show up here in exchange for not being snooped on or locked up. Plus, these guys really did seem like they kept people safe.

"Third, we might need to call you in for clandestine operations."

"Hold on," Gregor said. "You want me, some random guy, to work for you?"

"Be fair to yourself, Gregor, you're not just 'some guy'. Your field experience alone would qualify you, not to mention your special talent. We'd give you three thousand dollars a month just to be on the roster. More for each time you're deployed."

Doing the math in his head, it didn't sound bad. And it wasn't like he would be on active duty the whole time...

"What sort of things would I be doing?"

"D.A, S.R, F.I.D, C.A," the man said, rattling off acronyms. "Although most of it would just be the S.R."

The acronyms were things he had training for. The last one meant Special Reconnaissance, a lot better than D.A, Direct Action.

"That's a pretty big list for a small organization," Gregor said.

"I was just using the words I thought you would understand, Gregor. I can assure you that none of it will get as hot as Saqiq or Cristobal were. It's all supposed to be kept covert, so you shouldn't expect parachutes and explosives at every go. And I don't think you'll be ordered to kill anything."

Gregor said he needed time to think the offer over, so the guy left, leaving a business card that had nothing but a phone number and a first name.

' _I bet this guy's real name isn't even Frank,'_ Gregor thought. ' _He could have picked hundreds of fake names, and he goes with Frank?'_

Aside from the name, the rest of it was believable, and Gregor was easily convinced. Whatever this organization was, they had set up tents and a cordon in the middle of Central Park, shutting that whole area off from the public. They wouldn't waste the time and effort on doing that unless they were serious about keeping people safe.

If Gregor needed a job, he could do worse than working for them. It would give him reasons to be down in Regalia while getting paid at the same time. The money was enough to live on (for him), and he could probably make contacts with people in the government. It could be a ticket to a new life, even though it was still in the same vein as his military experience before. It would be good to be needed, as well.

Mrs. Cormaci called soon afterward, and demanded that Gregor spend at least a week at her place. She talked a big mess about being old and having nobody to visit her, but Gregor knew she still had plenty of friends in the building. Complaining was just her way of making him feel less guilty about staying with her. He promised he would come as soon as they were let out of the clinic.

Time passed. Gregor picked up a months-old magazine and tried to read it, but it was tough to keep focused. Usually he was the one on the operating table and everyone else was waiting to hear his results. It was some time until Dr. Parry entered, with the same jovial attitude he seemed to have picked up during his career as a doctor.

"How is she?"

"In the recovery room right now. The surgery went well, but it will take quite some time before her vision returns to its full capacity. Actually, it'll be a bit better than her original acuity."

"Lucky for her," Gregor said.

"The laser is still warmed up, if you'd like a go," he joked. "If you took Frank up on his offer, I'm sure it would be covered under our medical plan."

"Do you work for Frank?"

Will shook his head.

"No, not for him. I don't exactly work for any of them, really. There's a man in London who calls me up for certain things, like degenerative diseases from other realities or to review things they think are fishy."

"Wait, are you sure you should be telling me any of this?" Gregor asked.

"Sure. There's a scientific theory that other realities exist, yeah?"

"Sure, but nobody I know thinks you can travel between them."

"Gregor, mate," Will said, shaking his head. "Your first day on the job will be quite the experience."

* * *

 _It was another one of her sleepless times. There was a disagreement among the laborers over the conditions of work in the New Undercroft, and negotiations had been stalled for at least two days. Luxa didn't want anyone to be shorted there. She knew there was a solution to be found to benefit the workers and the project alike._

 _But until it could be found, she walked the hallways of her palace. The guards saluted as she walked past, some asking if she needed aid, but most understanding that impromptu night marches were now routine to her- the Queen was not so quick to rest._

 _Her walk seemed to go in circles, past the old chambers of Vikus and Solovet, past the emptied nursery. Luxa knew she might find Nerissa in the Prophecy room, but her sentiments were not so shallow as to be sated by simple chatter._

 _Miranda was waiting in the hall as Luxa made one more turn._

" _Up so late?" the Captain of her guard asked. Her arms were crossed._

" _Sleep is a scarcity for me at this hour," Luxa confessed. "I cannot seem to find it."_

" _One could claim you have not made an effort to search for it in bed," Miranda joked. "You have walked this circuit a dozen times over."_

 _It was more than a joke. It was an accusation. Miranda had watched over Luxa from one position or another her entire life. As close to kin as a guard would allow herself to get._

" _I can rest later," Luxa said._

" _We can all rest when we're dead," Miranda said. The emotion had gone out of her face._

 _Luxa was shocked. Miranda had never been the morbid type. She looked to her to see any sign of farce, but her Captain's face was as still as death. And then, it started to deteriorate- the skin began disappearing bit by bit, torn off by some invisible force._

 _Luxa shut her eyes. It was a hallucination. She not have gone without sleep for so long, it would drive anyone mad! But she couldn't open her eyes again. It was all dark. Miranda was gone, the stone walls around her were gone. She reached to the side, and touched air. Above her, no ceiling. Below her, no floor. She was falling, and couldn't even feel it. She woke before she hit the ground._

Luxa opened her eyes, and _saw._ The blurry, dim view of an alabaster ceiling seemed even more stunning than the intricacies of the Grand Forum at home. The surface she was staring at was not engraved with a hundred masterpieces and would not compare favorably to anything in her palace, but she could _see_ , and there was enough beauty in that.

For weeks, her vision had been blocked because of the damaged surface of her eyes. The best doctors in the Fount and in Regalia examined her and could not see any possible treatments. The physicians attempted to invent several cures, but none could bring her anything more than relief from the pain.

Now, it seemed that the Overlander chirugeons had restored her eyes within a day of her arrival. She had been awake during the procedure, but some manner of alchemical solution had been used to remove the sensations in her eyes. Then, a mechanical device projected intensely focused light to destroy the damaged fragments. And then, in the most worrying moments, a blade was taken to her eye to prepare for the specially-treated placenta.

Gregor had sounded so taken aback when the physician told him of the treatment. His reactions were quite unique, she thought. He had kept at least that bit charming silliness with him. Other parts of him had changed. According to a maid she had sent to observe him upon his arrival, his face had elongated, with a prominent chin and jaw that made him appear intensely stern, even from the other end of a corridor. A guard reluctantly reported that the Warrior's brow was constantly tensed, as if he had lost the easygoing nature of his youth that had inspired more than a dozen poets to capture his gallant figure.

Just by hearing these descriptions, Luxa knew that much larger changes must have occurred. Within her unjustified anger during his belated arrival, there had also been some fear. The death of Vikus after many years of ailing was difficult to adjust to, and her persistent affliction from the ambush at the Fount had driven home the painful thorns of the previous years.

She had felt the pressures of ruling, the pain of solitude, and the constant threat of a war as they took whatever was left of her childhood softness. Her cousins were a source of much relief, yet there were few people she could trust outside of their meager number.

A kind nurse stopped by and asked a few questions about Luxa's sight. She spoke as Gregor did, a mixture of rough words and a short, clipped tone. Even so, her accent was different from Gregor and the Physician Will Parry, as well. How many sorts of people lived in the Overland?

"You're very lucky," the nurse said. "I haven't seen anyone heal this fast without a full moon."

"Without a full moon?" Luxa asked. She knew there was a Moon that hung above the Overland. No one had informed her that it changed. There were no stories about it in Regalia, except for a children's tale about a very hungry nibbler on a quest for cheese.

"Oops, I'm not supposed to talk about those guys," the nurse said.

'Oops' was a very strange thing to hear. It had no true meaning, like many exclamations she had heard in the Overland. But it was enjoyable to say.

"Oops," Luxa repeated. "Ooooops."

"You're a quick learner, too!" the nurse said. "You'll do fine up here."

The shadowy form of the nurse left and Luxa turned back inwards. She couldn't see things clearly enough to start investigating the true nature of the Overland. It had been very challenging just listening and smelling it. Although she had tasted it very recently, too.

'Pizza' was something that had surpassed all previous expectations. Gregor had told some very convincing tales about it, but without the 'tomaytoes', not even the palace chefs managed a satisfying imitation of it. The real thing was everything she had been told - greasy, salty, just the tiniest hint of sweet. A very novel taste, indeed.

What more surprises lay ahead? It could take a very long time before Regalia could hold its Queen again. All of the soldiers assigned to protect her were gone, and she couldn't possibly ask any more to throw away their lives when an easier solution existed. She could remain here until Regalia needed its Queen again. Maybe she could serve her own needs until then.

First to see with her new eyes, of course, would be the stars, and the moon. If the time was not right, then she would settle for the things called 'clouds'. She decided it would be supremely entertaining to be able to see the sky at any hour and experience life without an upwards limit, like she imagined Gregor had done in the years that separated them.

Of course, she would look at him too. They would look at each other. Luxa had kept him at a distance the first day he arrived to avoid becoming close again. She forbade anyone to tell him of her planned gambit at the palace. When he arrived, she had already made peace with a near-certain death. Now that life awaited Luxa, she was deeply embarrassed about the mistreatment she had subjected him to.

It was only thanks to him that she had cheated death, even when exhaustion had pushed her to the point of collapse. Gregor had appeared in what she thought would be her last moments. Bloody and battered, but still whole. In a moment of foolishness, she had kissed him just as soon as the snake-blood was cleared from his lips. For years, she had purposely disregarded the recommendations of the council, their list of potential suitors and their selfish hopes. The return of the Warrior brought the situation into a crisis. She made the crisis worse by stoking that ember of affection she still carried within herself.

Luxa chastised herself for her feelings. It was irresponsible to pretend she was in love with the Overlander. The previous time they had spoken in any serious capacity was after the dinner banquet, when she had knowingly goaded him into anger. The berrywine had lowered the barrier between years of frustrations and her actions as Queen, and the result was a private airing of grievances that soon became public.

Indirectly, she had besmirched the honor of the Overlander in the eyes of her subjects. Gregor didn't know that those words were intended to be their last, and the fact that she had allowed such antipathy to dominate the conversation filled her with guilt.

Despite the ill treatment, he had returned. After every last ally was lost or placed out of reach, the one who had saved her many times before repeated his act. Was that what she so enjoyed about him? Gregor could not be accused of punctuality. But the facts were clear: when she had needed him, he was there. Was it for her? Or was he there because of his ideals?

The ophthalmologist from the day previous visited upon Luxa next. To her surprise, the woman's skin was deeply dark, more even than Gregor's. Luxa had never seen anyone like that before.

"Judging by your shock, your lenses seem to be acceptable condition. This is just one possible shade for people here, but I'm told it's quite the opposite in your hometown."

Luxa nodded, a bit shamefully. She hadn't meant any disrespect by staring.

"I'm not offended," the woman physician promised. "I get that reaction from many of my patients. They tell me my voice doesn't match my color."

She introduced herself again, and this time Luxa could match a name to a face. The 'eye doctor' wanted to be called by her first name, Amadia. After extracting a promise to appear weekly at the clinic, the doctor had to leave, but was sure to tell Luxa that things were looking good.

'Looking good' was another interesting phrase that was used here. Instead of saying that something 'appeared well', things were simplified and made concrete - it was saying that you witnessed something and made the decision that it was promising. It was more than an observation, it was a personal promise. The spirit of that term was in Gregor.

He was sincere and present with anyone he spoke to. She could remember looking at his face and reading his heart in every little action and emotion. When he was sad, he wept. When he was happy, the elation escaped his body and touched everyone around him.

In light of his spirit, she cursed that he was too good for her. In Luxa's heart, Gregor was pure. He was not cruel and rigid like her and the rest of the Regalians, save the noble few such as Vikus and Nerissa. Gregor saw the humanity in the crawlers, he had sympathies with the gnawers, and he bonded to an outcast bat just to save its life. These acts were the stuff of legends, almost unbelievable if she hadn't been witness to them herself.

He dove into a whirlpool to save a gnawer, the kind of feat that hadn't been seen outside of Hamnet's maddened attempts at the flooded Garden of Hesperides. The Overlander had bathed and groomed a rat on the edge of death- and then used the same comb on himself. Without his example, it was difficult to imagine that she could have made the peace-bond with Ripred, the ratty-est gnawer she knew, let alone maintain the alliance for so many years since. The royal family was filled with atrocities against the rats and bloody retaliations in return, yet a visitor from the Overland brought balance to her lineage.

If Gregor was some miracle maker, Luxa didn't trust her bloodstained hands to touch him. He deserved a woman from his own land, someone who would dedicate herself to him with mind, body, and soul and receive the same in kind. Not someone with a legacy and an authority centuries old.

That was the true source of frustration here, the thing that made her curse the single kiss she had given to him. It was not fair to enjoy herself at his expense. She would never be anything but Queen of Regalia and the responsibilities and dangers of a King were unfair to place upon him, one who had never asked to be involved with the Underland from the beginning. She also thought it unfair to treat him as some form of paramour or breeding stud who had no role but to satisfy her needs.

She had refused to be courted for a very long time, refused to marry and bring a child into the world. It was mainly a protest against the council's attempts to re-assert its authority, but some of it was the youth she had preserved in herself. It was the memory of the girl who shared stolen kisses and stolen time with a boy who was guaranteed to leave her.

Eventually, Luxa knew her role as Queen would require her to throw away the memory of her first love and embrace her duties to their fullest capacity. Otherwise she could be replaced with a more traditional alternative.

She could share another ephemeral period with Gregor here, a single month or so in the light of his land. But there were men and women who had died with her name on their lips. Luxa would not mock the dead by pretending her life could be lived away from the city they had died for.

A Queen to her throne and the Overlander to his home. Some sweet memories to dream about, and a handful of anecdotes to entertain at court. That was all she would take from him this time.

A tear dripped down her cheek. It was a relief to Luxa. She had not been able to cry for some time now.


	3. Chapter 3 : Midnight Confession

Mrs. Cormaci was ecstatic when she answered the door. Gregor had called ahead, so she was all ready to go with a hearty dinner and a bunch of old videotapes stacked up by the TV.

After pulling himself from a hug, Gregor asked what the deal was with the pile of tapes. They were piled up on a side-table, dominating the room.

Mrs. Cormaci answered from over Luxa's shoulder as she wrapped the Queen-on-hiatus in a warm embrace.

"I was thinking about what I could share with you both to make the adjustment easier, and I remembered all the television I have recorded. If you watch these with her, I'm sure you'll find all sorts of important things you've forgotten to tell her about."

Mrs. Cormaci had a point. The skies were overcast when a black car drove them over to Gregor's boyhood home, but the light was still too much for Luxa's recovering eyes. Squinting through her eyelids, the world must have seemed stranger than it actually was. With the collection of tapes, she could take things at her own pace.

"I am deeply grateful," Luxa said, stiffly.

"It's no problem," Mrs. Cormaci returned, gracefully. "Seeing as it's official now."

"You're really moving in with your son?" Gregor asked. He couldn't believe Mrs. Cormaci, the fixture and social anchor of the building, would be moving out.

"He's got the house now, with a room on the ground floor all set up for me. Only stairs I'll have to climb are on the front porch."

It was probably a relief to get away from the perennially-broken elevator here and the multiple flights of stairs. Gregor's knee had started aching halfway up, even with his brace.

The renewed energy in Cormaci was probably part of her upcoming move. A lot of her stuff was already packed away, and she had made both pasta _and_ an entree of chicken parmesan for dinner.

"Eat up, you two. I don't have space in the refrigerator for all of this."

With the speedy restoration of her eyes, Luxa was now seeing enough detail to greedily inspect her surroundings from her seat, memorizing everything from the photographs on the walls to the chintz trimming around the windows. When she heard Mrs. Cormaci enjoining them to eat, she snapped her eyes from the surroundings and onto Gregor, who had been focused on her. Caught in the act, he looked down to his plate of penne.

When he looked back up, Mrs. Cormaci had a spark in her eye and Luxa was staring intentionally hard at her food. Mrs. Cormaci flashed him a double thumbs-up from her end of the table.

' _Uh oh,'_ Gregor thought.

The meal was astounding, and Gregor had to admit he had never had better home cooking anywhere else. Mrs. Cormaci had the experience and skills that probably rivaled a chef's.

The chicken parmesan blew the top off of Luxa's expectations. Chicken was not a new meat to her, but the combination of the breading, the moist meat, and the glorious sauce melted together in her mouth.

"Is it good?" Mrs. Cormaci asked.

"Yes," Luxa agreed, then added,"It is amazing."

"I could give you the recipe if you want. Do you do much cooking at home?"

Gregor suppressed the urge to cover his eyes. Mrs. Cormaci knew Luxa was a straight-up queen. When was the last time royalty cooked for themselves?

"I... I do not know how to cook," Luxa said hesitantly. "In fact, until Gregor visited, I did not know how to prepare items as simple as sandwiches."

"Don't worry," Mrs. Cormaci said. "You and Gregor can help me out tomorrow. There's a bake-sale for charity tomorrow evening, and my cookies are always a big hit. You can pick up a lot just by watching, you'll see."

Gregor was beginning to suspect their host's game plan. She was acting like some kind of wingman, playing up his strengths and then orchestrating ways for them to spend time together. It was pretty obvious to him, so Gregor was sure Luxa had caught on by now. Things might just get really awkward.

But instead, she looked very interested in the plan. Her violet eyes met his but there were no signs of doubt or embarrassment. Maybe there was a chance.

"Do you need anything from the store?" Gregor asked. "We can go first thing in the morning."

"I'll have a list ready by then, that same grocery about three blocks from here should be the best place to buy all of it."

Gregor ate his fill and found that Luxa had taken no airs about her plate either, cleaning it fully, even after seconds. Mrs. Cormaci excused herself early, saying that she preferred an earlier bedtime. Just before she turned in for the night, she asked Gregor to help her with the linens, while Luxa applied the medicated drops that were supposed to keep her eyes in their restorative state.

"She doesn't need help with a flush toilet, does she?" Mrs. Cormaci asked.

"I'm sure she had plenty of experience with the ones in the clinic."

"It's nice that she's adapting so quickly. But what about you?"

"I was only gone for a few days," Gregor protested.

"I mean you adapting to her. Just one look at you and I can tell you're in a better mood than you've been in years."

"It's that obvious?" Gregor asked. After nearly dying in a swarm of snakes for Luxa, he would no longer deny he loved her if someone asked.

"Obvious to anyone, really. Grace will be so relieved when I tell her-"

"Oh geez, not Mom!" Gregor protested, still whispering.

"We were worried. I always said you'd be a late-bloomer-"

Gregor sighed while Mrs. Cormaci shook with glee.

"It's part of having your first girlfriend, Gregor. Me and your mom get to tease you. Not too much, though. See, I could've asked if you needed a blanket for the sofa, or if you'd both be using the guest bed. But I'm taking the high road and just giving you two sets and letting you sort it out."

Gregor wanted to protest that it still counted as teasing even if she didn't say it directly. But he was cut off by Luxa sticking her head around the corner, from within the bathroom.

"The toilet... it is stuck," she said, a look of worry on her face.

 _The lesson on 'TMI' was being moved up to priority number one._

It turned out she had tried flushing the bandages that she used to wrap her eyes up with. In the Underland, their toilets were just seats over running water, so you could get away with stuff like that. After Gregor used the plunger to fish the sodden bandages out, Mrs. Cormaci took it upon herself to go over the full list of what could and could not be flushed in the Overland.

He made Luxa's bed in the guest room and then collapsed onto the sofa with his blanket, shedding all but his boxers. The clinic only gave them one change of clothes, so he didn't want to wear his out. Plus, it was kind of warm in the apartment. Gregor didn't remember it ever being this cozy as a kid. Maybe somebody complained hard enough to get the building's heat turned up. With a full stomach and a less-troubled mind, it was too easy to fall asleep.

* * *

 _Three weeks for airborne training. He had been suggested to volunteer while he was on leave. By the second week, he was jumping from towers. By the third, the jumps were from a plane itself. The fear of heights had followed his fear of death and his fear of loss into a little box he kept locked up._

 _That was the end of his falling-nightmares for a while. On a static-line jump, you didn't even have to measure the distance yourself. You plummet for a few moments, there's a yank as your parachute is deployed, and then you glide safely to the floor. Falling dreams were good dreams now. Gregor enjoyed them, no matter the dark colors in the sky or the twisted shapes of the clouds he descended through._

Gregor's eyes opened to a room that wasn't his and there was an intense half-second of panic before his mind remembered how to echo-locate.

"Gregor?"

 _Luxa's voice. Rich in tone and carefully recited. It was the voice of a proud sovereign, even as it whispered to him in the night._

"What's up?" Gregor asked, too groggy to say anything else.

"I am having trouble falling into sleep."

That would almost be expected for anyone who had lived through the things she did.

"Would you mind... coming to bed with me?" Luxa asked.

Gregor knew what she meant when she said it, but he couldn't deny that there was a brief primal rush in his body before his mind caught up. She was simply asking that they lie on the same bed together. It was common in the Underland, where it seemed almost everyone sought the protection and warmth of others.

The fliers bunched together, the gnawers and nibblers had their nests. Humans often shared bunks, even in the Overland. There had been a long period where Boots had slept with Lizzie, and when they were infants, his mom or dad would keep the youngest with them. It was just a way to keep close, to keep safe.

"Sure," Gregor said.

Her silhouette jumped a bit, in surprise. He wasn't using his echolocation now, he was using the dim light that seemed to permeate everything in the city. Maybe Luxa had been sleepwalking, or maybe she was expecting a polite denial. Either way, a big awkward gap seemed to open between them as Gregor got to his feet and followed her, still wrapped in his quilted coverlet. The apartment didn't seem quite so warm in the dead of night.

The mattress was old, maybe older than one of his sisters. The metal springs within groaned as the two clambered over the metal frame and onto the sheets. The cloth was worn but was still soft and seemed to block out the chill. Lumpy mattress aside, it was way better than trying to catch some Zs on the sunken sofa.

It made sense to Gregor why all of the stuff was so old. Even though Mrs. Cormaci had been in a position to help out his family quite a bit in the past, their building was still meant for people who didn't bring home that much money. After her own kids had moved out and her husband passed away, Mrs. Cormaci always talked about one of her kids finally doing well enough to bring her on. She wasn't in any hurry to leave, but there was no sense in buying more things if leaving her place was a given.

Gregor thought about telling Luxa any of that, trying to justify her inelegant surroundings. But his head had never really left the fog of sleep. Even though she and him were facing each other, there was only enough room on the mattress for their bodies to be inches apart. There were some boundaries they would not cross so easily. And together, it seemed that sleep was another one of them.

She started speaking when it became clear that neither would be going back so quickly.

"I know not which is worse: that I could not see the guards and soldiers as they went off to die for me, or that I was only able to hear the sounds and catch the scent of their sacrifice. To my knowledge, I am the first ruler of Regalia to entirely lose the Royal Division."

Guilt. That was what kept her awake. Now that the exhaustion was gone, the physical afflictions continued. Gregor knew it well. Maybe he had never left it.

He guessed it was inevitable any time you lose something; Time travels in one direction only, but once you get in the mood you can return back to every mistake in your head. He didn't know where the questioning started for her, what tiny decision Luxa would come to blame. She was used to making decisions, but sometimes a failure got taken up inside your head and morphed beyond royal proportions.

Her eyes were screwed shut, her head was filled with recollection. Gregor didn't know what to tell her, didn't know what to do. He felt her pain, because in some senses, it was his own as well. In Saqiq, the rager phenomenon he had come to rely on was not enough. At the very end, his shortsightedness had cost the life of his lieutenant, the last survivor of the unit. From journalists to the mandatory therapist, every single person he had spoken with in the aftermath tried to absolve his self-doubt. It hadn't really helped. He had relived that time nearly every day before recent events got in the way. He only had an idea of how he could help.

"It couldn't be all of them, right?" Gregor said. "Hazard must have had his guards, as well as all of the people that rallied to Mareth. The evacuation was successful, too. They saved a lot of lives."

The words were whispered _,_ although he doubted anyone else could hear them. It felt like the appropriate thing to do, as late as it was and with the furtive way she had invited him. He wasn't supposed to be there in bed with her, no matter their intentions.

"I acted foolishly. I forgot that our Kings and Queens rarely die of old age. If I had but recalled the loss of my mother and father, I would have never been so lax. I could not even see the creature that blinded me. My last vision was of a woman who had been among my personal detail. She sheltered me from the cutters until help arrived, and as a result, she was bit many, many times. That never ought to have happened. They all would have retained their light if I had simply walked a different way on the beach that day."

"They knew what they risked by serving as your guard. I'm sure it was a honor to protect their Queen and their city."

The response was automatic and Gregor knew it was easily ignored. He knew because he had tried similar logic on himself, multiple times.

"We are not like the cutters. Not a single one of them lived just to die for their queen. They left behind children, bonds, lovers. I will forever be know as the bloodred Queen. How many have died for my sake?"

Gregor extended his hand toward Luxa's. She didn't move hers. The back of her hand was chill to the touch, laying flat on the no-mans-land of floral-printed cotton between them. He held on anyway, squeezing to remind her he was _there_. That he was a real person who had seen many of the same things that she had, that they were not alone.

"Look, Luxa. Don't take it the wrong way, but it might be kind of self-centered to think every thing that happens is your fault."

The words were intended to shock, but Gregor had to follow it up quickly to prevent another argument from happening.

"I mean, you're the Queen, but everybody has their own life, right? You're the leader of Regalia, but you said it yourself, none of your people are like ants. They thought things through and they decided to follow you. They know what you can do and what you've done and they chose to work with you for themselves and their city. I don't think anybody that died was only thinking about you as they passed."

There was still a hostile silence from Luxa, her eyes still closed tightly. Gregor winced as he reconsidered how his words might be taken. He struggled for the words and they fell out in a jumble.

"I'm just saying, even if you feel responsible, even if someone else tries to hold you responsible, it wasn't your fault. We were all putting everything on the line there. We fought for ourselves for the future. And maybe, if some of their fighting was for your sake, maybe that isn't that big of a deal."

Gregor shut up after that. He wasn't used to talking at length on any subject, let alone something this serious. As he grew up, his words had receded further and further into himself, until it was almost like most of the talking he did was in his own head.

The bright purple in Luxa's eyes caught the light as she shrewdly examined his face. Could she see how unsure he was of his own words? Did she see him on the brink?

Her response was closed off, delivered in a formal tone that echoed the stiffness of the response.

"I must think upon this," she said. "I did not mean to burden you."

But then she did something that closed the gap. She answered the questions swirling in his head and quickened his heart. Luxa came just a little closer to him and leaned forward, so that her forehead was gently pressing into his chest. She nestled closer and he found himself moving to hold her close, finding a natural position for his arm to drape across her waist.

There was no space for words after that. Luxa didn't hate him and so maybe they didn't hate themselves. Sleep came easy, the lumpy mattress forgotten along with the cold and the dark that surrounded them.

* * *

 **A/N: Story is already written, will be published in weekly batches. ~80,000 words**


	4. Chapter 4 : Ingredients

Her first true encounter with the sky nearly floored Luxa. After an entire life lived with a ceiling close above her and the perpetual sunless oblivion of the Underland, the sight of the seemingly endless sky was enough to soften her knees. She reached out to the railing and managed to sit down on the stoop outside the building, shedding the hat and sunglasses to get a better look.

"I... I could never envision _this,_ " Luxa said, sweeping a hand up to the pale blue sky. It was streaked with thin, wispy clouds that served to remind her just how endless it was.

"I used to take it for granted," Gregor admitted.

It was just after rush hour, but the city streets were still crowded with cars, not exactly unexpected in New York. Gregor looked over to Luxa and saw her following them with her eyes in all their colors and shapes.

"And do these cars always travel with such speed?"

"They're supposed to go a lot faster." Gregor said. "Just wait till we get to a highway."

With time, the sky stopped dizzying her. As long as she did not look up into it so directly, the rest of the strange reality around her could be studied.

"Not to rush you," Gregor interjected. "But if I know anything about Mrs. Cormaci's cookies, they're gonna take some time to make."

She was on her feet immediately, vowing to study mysteries of the sky at a more relaxed moment.

Taking her proffered hand, Gregor managed to keep his recovering knee straight. Thankfully, the walk wouldn't be too long.

Luxa examined the people around her curiously. Most of them had places to be, judging from their hurried stride and the way they were locked into their paths. She and Gregor were being passed almost constantly by people in a hurry. She wasn't quite sure where they were all headed to, but she supposed the Overland had all sorts of needs that demanded quick fulfillment.

The buildings around them were labeled with their function - a shop or a cafe or an office. The structures were all the same from the outside, aged boxes of brick with varying facades but little in the way of decoration. Gregor was not trying to flatter when he called the city of Regalia more beautiful than his home.

Beauty was not the only thing lacking here. Try as she might, Luxa had not seen a single sentinel or soldier yet. She possessed no clue what they would look like in the Overland, but at the least, she could not see anyone wielding weapons like Gregor had brought into battle.

"They do not bear arms here?" Luxa asked. In Regalia, it was expected to keep a weapon on one's person or otherwise nearby. An ambush could be expected, or worse.

"Not here, no," Gregor said, taking a look around the corner they were waiting at. "People disagree on how necessary they are, and things are pretty safe around here."

The light at the other side of the street changed to a simple drawing of a man walking, and Luxa moved to cross, as they had done at the previous corner.

His hand tugged at her arm and she stopped. Just then, a car came screaming around the corner, a shrill alarm blaring from it as it sped off to some distant place. Luxa credited herself for not flinching as it passed by.

"What manner of vehicle was that? It is quite loud."

"The police ride around in those, and the siren is to keep people out of its way. C'mon, let's cross before someone else thinks they can pull the same stunt."

There were many more people and yet fewer threats, Gregor had said. Yet he did not acknowledge the biggest threats- large metal wagons rolling through the streets, lethal electric currents running through their homes, a fiercely burning light in the sky that burned the skin and could cause disease. There was still plenty of things to be wary of in the Overland.

The visit to the grocers had introduced many new questions, but Gregor had managed to answer or deflect most of them.

One thing he could not deflect was Luxa's interest in a book stand. To Gregor, it was a pretty common sight , a place that sold newspapers, magazines, and cheap books. To Luxa, it was an unparalleled show of extravagance. The brightly colored covers of the books, the amounts of paper that had been used to create them, and the subjects that they contained.

"The Art of War is meant to be common knowledge?" Luxa asked, reading one title.

"It's a classic. Most people today read it for reasons other than waging war."

"I know this one- _Meditations_ by Marcus Aurelius. Or at least I have seen it archived along with other works. Vikus referenced it more than once during my rearing. And what is this?"

Luxa was pointing at a slim unit.

"Machiavelli." Gregor said. "I guess somebody dumped their collection of philosophy books here."

The man running the stand was starting to get impatient and Gregor's arm felt like hell from the sacks of sugar and flour he had volunteered to carry. He made a quick choice to buy the books they had been looking at, plus one or two more. It wasn't expensive at all and he got the feeling that he would have plenty of time to read some of them too.

Luxa carried them the block or so it took to get back home, and even though she wasn't exactly beaming, something about her walk seemed a little lighter as they hurried up the steps.

She found herself happy, maybe for the first time in a while. This didn't precisely make the Overland a safer place to be in, but the books and the man at her side seemed to promise much more than danger would be waiting each day.


	5. Chapter 5 : Above and Below

New York was about to exit the depths of winter, yet the sun still managed to be destructive. Luxa examined herself in the chipped mirror, frowning at the red patches that had appeared on her cheeks. Perhaps it was time to request that 'sun cream' Gregor had mentioned.

Mrs. Cormaci walked by the open bathroom door and poked her head in.

"Well, it's looking better than yesterday, that's for sure," the older woman said, interrupting Luxa's stare at her changing reflection.

"I underestimated the power of your sun."

"Sunscreen is just about the only thing I can think of that could help, save wrapping yourself in bandages."

Mrs. Cormaci opened up the mirrored cabinet that Luxa had been staring into and rummaged around for something inside. Luxa looked at the various bottles, boxes, and tubes within, wondering just how so many colors and such quantities of medicine could be manufactured. Perhaps not all of them were life-saving or even useful, but it must be a relief for people to have a personal cache of supplies. Mrs. Cormaci's search yielded a tall plastic bottle filled with a clear goo.

"Aloe vera is the best thing I know for sunburns. I should know at this point, especially after my youngest. He spent too many summer days playing ball before he got wise to sunscreen."

Luxa reached for the bottle but Mrs. Cormaci wouldn't let go.

"I'll show you how to do it first," she said.

Sitting on the couch, the woman that dabbed fingerfuls of the stuff on her face and neck. Looking out of the window at the row upon row of buildings, Luxa realized the sheer size of the Overland.

On this very level of the building, there were a dozen rooms. There were multiple floors beyond theirs as well, and then multiple buildings. A multilevel housing structure was nothing new to her, but being able to look outside and see all of that and more was a sobering moment. Even in this building, there were a hundred potential people who could have fallen into the Underland. Many more Overlanders existed beyond that; it was indeed nigh impossible that so few had fallen below.

And there were more cities beyond this one, and a million roads that connected them all together. The common people here lived their lives everywhere, unknowing and uncaring about an entire world deep below. Were it not for the prophecy that foretold the death of all life above, Luxa could see herself leading her people to a greater safety in the Overland.

And even if the path was clear, generations had fought for the land they held now. Too many wars had been waged for Regalia to abandon it for whatever the Overland offered. It was clear enough that her people were not meant for the Overland- her skin had burnt, even on a shaded day!

However, tradition could have been too harsh when it came to visiting the Overland. Sandwich had his reasons for sealing the entrances when the city was built, but she thought there could be certain benefits in allowing short trips to the Overland.

As if on cue, Gregor came through the door, breathing heavily. A plastic bag was in his hands and he showed the contents after he hung his coat and wiped his snow-dusted shoes on the welcome mat.

"I got there just before they closed. I think this is the strongest stuff they have," he said.

"I didn't know SPFs went that high," Mrs. Cormaci remarked, packing away the aloe now that its work was done.

Gregor handed Luxa the newly purchased bottle and she inspected it for herself, glad that her vision had now returned enough to read the tiny letters printed by machine onto the bottle. Little of the writing seemed to be of practical use, so she quickly put it off to the side.

"I thank you, Gregor," Luxa said, stiffly. She did not have anything to give him beyond that.

"No problem," Gregor returned, looking just as awkward. "Getting back to the clinic tomorrow for your eye exam will take a while, so I just wanted to make sure you'd be okay on the trip."

She was a queen in Regalia, and was used to a life of servants, sycophants, and subjects. Being pampered and catered to was expected. There was something different about the way Gregor treated her. Without parents and with limited kin, could it be that this was something new? Being cared for was not something she could boast familiarity with.

 _What a shame, considering the pleasure that it gave her._

While she had been absorbed in thought, Gregor was fishing through the stacks of videotapes their host had so graciously provided for them. One looked promising, and he was already inserting it into one of the many 'plass-tick' devices by the glass-box they called 'a television set'. She hadn't quite figured out the mechanisms that drove them, but the visual spectacle of the screen was certainly unique.

He described the thing as 'a Western' and explained how the particular recording they were watching was 'a classic'. Even in the dim light, Luxa could see a younger enthusiasm flashing across his face with the orange colored glow of the recording.

In the box, a man with a wide-brimmed hat and dust-covered clothes drifted across arid expanses of land on the path for revenge. Compared to what she was familiar with, the shining sands and the pale blue sky could almost certainly be taken as another world. The characters spoke strange words in stranger accents she had never heard before. The weapons with which they did battle were not found in the Underland. Still, she saw something universal in the play performed in front of her- the story was still connected to the things that she knew.

At the end, the drifter continued on into the setting sun, leaving behind the people that he had helped. It truly was a representation of the word 'lonesome'. After watching it in its entirety (and asking that the commercials that interrupted it should not be skipped), Luxa understood just a little bit more about Gregor and his land.

She wanted to ask him more about the show, but when she turned to her silent companion, he was asleep. Luxa watched his chest rise and fall for a few moments and then managed to lay him sideways along the couch, pulling the coverlet around him. Like this, he resembled a flier at rest, bundled up to his head.

Finding the button that shut off the set, Luxa returned to her bed, wondering how 'lonesome' Gregor felt now.

* * *

The next morning, Mrs. Cormaci informed them that she had her lady's pinochle get-together that afternoon, so Gregor got a spare key on the way out of the door. Nobody knew how long the check-up would take, and it took time to get all the way to the clinic and back.

The walk to their stop wasn't hard at all. Gregor's knee had stopped aching with each day's errands and Luxa had picked up on the basics of his neighborhood.

He pointed out his old elementary school as they passed by. Luxa asked about the subjects that were taught and was surprised to find both art and music on the list.

"Every child must attend those lessons? Even those who have no artistic aspirations?"

"Yeah," Gregor shrugged. "You get to choose later, so I guess they're trying to expose kids to as many different things as possible first."

The rationale behind universal lessons made sense in the Overland, where decisions were not always made with survival in mind. But it was more often the sword than the brush that would be placed in a Regalian's hands. In the calmer moments of the past decade, Luxa had become a patron of several artists, but art was never the sole vocation of those people. Rather, they served Regalia as laborers or craftsmen in addition to their creative talents.

The difference, Luxa presumed, had to be money. As they boarded the bus and she dropped the small metal coins into a slot, Luxa wondered what all was different because of the existence of currency. In the Underland, debts were paid in time or blood.

The city around her was incredibly large and packed with life. Gregor said that the grime was hidden for a short while under the snow. She could not imagine how the city surprising her again. Then, as they crossed over a river, she had an uninterrupted view of the town on either side of the river. Where Gregor had lived, there were certainly many of people. But where the bus was headed, the towers became unbelievably high. She let out an involuntary gasp when she saw the tallest of them, a beautifully angular prism of glass and metal. It reflected the sky itself and took on the blue-gray colors.

"We can go check those out later, if you want." Gregor offered.

"Truly?" Luxa asked excitedly. "That sounds appealing."

"Yeah," Gregor says. "There's plenty of tourist stuff we can do. It's my fault that we've been spending so much time at the apartment."

"It is not so bad," Luxa said, thinking of the hearty food and kind treatment. "But I do wish to see all that we can comfortably see here."

Gregor came up with a seemingly endless list of possible activities in the time it took to reach their stop. Even while they approached the same basement entrance to the clinic, he was still producing a series of names and destinations.

Luxa grasped his hand before he could press the buzzer.

"I believe you have already given me enough choices for a lifetime, Gregor, let alone my stay here," Luxa said.

"Yeah," Gregor said, his tone sounding upbeat but his face pulled into a grimace.

 _He did not appreciate the reminder of our limits here,_ Luxa thought. But she could not think of any other way.

A man with a familiar face answered the buzzer and let the pair in. The two physicians that had worked with her were waiting nearby, idly chatting over paper cups filled with the bitter drink known as coffee. The physician Parry again had a singular impression. Although tempered with time and kindness, the man had an iron-spined resolve, and his missing fingers hinted at a very old violence in his past.

"Ah, Ms. Luxa," Dr. Parry said, looking up. "How are things?"

"They are better than I could have ever hoped," Luxa said, honestly. "I owe you much."

"Don't bother with that," the doctor said, placing his reading glasses back around his neck. "Amadia is the one who made it all happen."

Luxa extended her thanks to Amadia but the female physician had a similar response.

"I promise you, Luxa, I'm being well-compensated for this. And you're such a pleasure to work with, anyway," she said.

The words could have been mistaken for flattery, but Luxa trusted the woman enough to accept them as truth.

"Anyway, while you two are running the exam, I've got to take Gregor on an errand upstairs," Dr. Parry said.

Gregor visibly tensed but Luxa didn't sense anything further reaction from him as he was lead away. She watched his back until the doors to the elevator closed, but Amadia proceeded with the exam. Luxa was told to look at a distant line of letters, the first of many peculiar exercises. She had no time to wonder at the mysteries above.

* * *

Gregor, however, had plenty of time to worry. The elevator rang its chime ten times on the way up, and he began to wonder just how large the organization he had gotten tangled up in was.

Dr. Parry had noted his discomfort.

"That Frank fellow doesn't have his offices this high up, but one of his bosses does. Since you told Frank you'd accept their conditions for Ms. Luxa's continued residence above, you might think of this meeting as your job interview."

Gregor sighed. A job interview didn't sound all that much better than an interrogation.

"How was your 'interview'?" Gregor asked.

"Far worse than you should expect here. It was quite a few years back and an organization man died because of me. Adding to the problems, that branch was much closer to the government had been infiltrated by someone from another world, so they had plenty of questions for me and very little understanding. It's all cleared up now."

Gregor would have pressed him for more details but they arrived at their floor. It was a narrow hallway, lined with what seemed to be double-sided mirrors. At the very end, a locked door that opened only when Dr. Parry scanned a card.

" _I can't blame them for wanting security,"_ Gregor thought.

The room beyond was a open space of cheap carpeting and rows of unused computer desks. There was only one light on- illuminating a big U-shaped table where two people were already sitting.

The fluorescent reflection off a bald pate confirmed Frank's presence here. A woman was sitting behind the desk, white hair visible even from a distance.

"Come in," the woman's voice entreated. "We've been waiting for you."

They stood as Gregor approached and offered their hand to shake. The woman, obviously Frank's boss, made a point of squeezing his hand painfully tight, but Gregor didn't respond in force.

She arched an eyebrow as if a simple decision like that intrigued her. No other words were spoken until all four were seated around the desk and a manila folder was passed to Gregor.

Gregor went to open it but the woman stopped him.

"Open that folder only if you've accepted the terms of our agreement."

"Monthly reports, availability for deployment, and 4,000 dollars a month," Gregor said, overstating his salary by just a bit.

Frank sat up from his folding chair

"4,000? I said-"

"4,000 is fine," the woman said, chuckling. "You've got the skills and experience for that much, at least."

Her voice was rough and she spoke with a sardonic tone that reminded Gregor of Ripred at his worst. Even still, Gregor liked her. He felt like she was strict but fair, a style he had served under many times before.

He opened the folder and found a collection of papers. A stapled packet labeled 'DOSSIER - FOR EYES ONLY' had a few pages of text, but there were a few loose pieces in the folder as well- things like codes and protocols.

Once Gregor had taken note of everything in the folder, Frank leaned in to talk.

"I bet you didn't think we'd have you earning that pay bump so soon, but we have a potentially Underland-related incident at hand," he said.

"In New York?"

"No, it really is only _potentially_ related. I don't want to regurgitate the dossier back at you, but the Geological Survey operates a network of tectonic sensors and one of them has started to send out strange readings."

The man pointed to a tell-tale section of jagged lines on a seismograph, separate from any of the others.

"A few weeks before you made the descent to the Underland, the sensors started registering a new set of ultrasonic frequencies," Frank said.

"Aren't there a lot of things that could do that?" Gregor asked. "What makes it Underland related?"

Frank rubbed his head before speaking.

"Those frequencies and that pattern have only been recorded in one place: below the NYC Subway," he explained. "Ultrasonic patterns like those are made by only a few animals and none of them are native to the area."

The boss-woman spoke up.

"We have to send one of our own to check. If the USGS sends someone down there and they find giant bats or cockroaches or bees, we're going to have problems."

"I guess I'm the natural pick because of my experience with the Underland," Gregor guessed.

"Sure," the woman said. "More conveniently, it's a stone's throw away from your place in Virginia."

Frank chuckled.

"Looks like you'll be taking her to see your family a bit earlier than expected."


	6. Chapter 6 : In Motion

It was Gregor's first time as well, but he didn't want her to know. The entrance fee to the observation deck had always been too expensive, when there were other views. Admitting that now felt like unnecessary information.

Luxa was probably too engrossed in the view to care. Seeing almost all of the city from a great height had been mindblowing for the first few minutes, and this particular observation deck was indoors, so they were dodging the blistering cold. He mentally debated whether to tell her there were higher platforms in taller buildings.

"Oh! I see people tethered to that one!" Luxa exclaimed, pointing at the Empire State Building. She was right, workers in fluorescent orange were on the spire, their thick jackets and bright colors the only visible thing about them.

They had already spent almost half an hour at the top. Gregor got bored of it pretty quick, but maybe that was because it wasn't all that new to him. Obviously, Luxa hadn't been spoiled on it yet, as she practically pressed her face to the glass trying to get the right view.

He didn't know when he would have to break the news about the assignment to her. He would have to travel back to Kent Farm in order to check out those geological sensors. It wouldn't take more than a couple of days if he rushed, but any degree of separation was worrying to him now.

When she was out of eyesight, Gregor could feel his heart speed up. On the nights that they hadn't shared a bed, his sleep was restless. It was textbook separation anxiety, but there's no way he could talk to anyone about it, let alone the person behind it.

A family ambled into their area, blissfully ignorant of Gregor's internal struggle. The youngest of the children chose to look at Luxa instead of the city, and pointed a stubby finger at her.

"Hey, that lady has-"

The kid was interrupted by her mother, but it was enough to break Luxa's concentration. She looked at them, and the family saw her unbelievably pale, near translucent skin. Unlike the staff that let them in, the family was not using to seeing people that looked different. Even the parents had their eyes opened wide by shock.

In the stunned silence that followed, Luxa backed away from the wide window, walking to Gregor and linking her elbow around his.

"Let us go," she said, her tone casual. "I have seen enough."

The elevator ride was long and Luxa didn't have any more words to offer. The time felt wrong for him to bring up the new assignment. Although her half-smile hadn't totally been wiped off her face, she still looked off-put.

"Is something wrong?" Gregor asked, knowing that there were plenty of things that _were_ wrong at the moment. It was more a question of which one she would start with.

"Was it those people staring?" he asked. With time, the Underlanders had stopped staring at him like an oddity and instead saw him as the Warrior. But there was no such hope for Luxa on the surface. This was not her land and there were no prophecies written about her here.

"Hmm," she thought aloud. "I suppose it could be that. But that is not the first time I have seen one of your people so off-put."

The elevator finished descending, the gut-pull of its deceleration forcing Luxa to grab a rail for reassurance.

"More than that, what troubles me is your silence. You have not spoken much after our visit to the clinic."

The lobby was deserted, a cavernous space of art-deco stone and metal ornamentation. Even on the tail end of winter, the city was cold enough to make their eyes water. They would take the subway back this time.

They didn't really speak until they were back at the apartment, shedding their layers at the door and hanging them on the crowded coat-rack.

"I would have told you earlier," Gregor said. "But I figured it was something we should talk about in private."

"I did not know your subject of discussion would be so serious," Luxa apologized. She had a weird ability to instantly become grave.

Gregor explained the assignment he had received, including all of the details about the unique ultrasonic frequencies and the fact that the mine was only a few hours from his house.

"The farm isn't that far away from here, but it's out of the range for messengers," Gregor said. "If you come with me, you wouldn't be able to get word from the Underland."

"But there would be a return, correct?" Luxa asked.

Gregor fought the urge to say that there would always be a return. Instead, he just nodded.

"It's only going to be a few days. I'm sure Mrs. Cormaci would call if another message got sent."

Luxa looked relieved, as if her decision was suddenly made much easier.

"In that case-"

Her response was interrupted by Mrs. Cormaci bursting through the door, stomping slush off of her boots with surprising energy.

She looked at Gregor and Luxa standing across from each other in the kitchen.

"Hello," she said cautiously, "I hope I wasn't interrupting anything."

The two shook their heads emphatically. They had already gotten enough teasing from their host after she saw that they had spent their first night together.

"In that case, I have some big news," she said. "My eldest is finally ready to have me move in."

Gregor looked to Luxa. Another decision had been made for them, and she appeared disappointed.

"What's with that reaction?" Mrs. Cormaci asked. "Don't tell me you two were actually having fun at this old lady's cramped apartment?"

They reassured her that they had really enjoyed their time there. Gregor even offered to help move before they went.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Remember that moving place you worked at in high school? I know the owner's ma, so I got a great deal on trucking my stuff to Long Island. They're coming tomorrow."

Things were moving quick. Gregor wasn't sure how much longer the tranquility would hold once they visited his home and he found whatever was waiting for them, deep in the earth.

Gregor called home and explained the situation. His mom was glad to hear that he'd be back, but everyone's schedules were so packed that only his uncle would be able to make the drive to get him and Luxa.

With that completed, Gregor returned to bed. Unvoiced between the two of them, this could possibly be their last night sleeping together. It couldn't possibly happen at his house under the watchful eye of his family. It would take some explanations, and as soon as they put words to this strange arrangement, the problems would increase exponentially.

It would be tough explaining how they weren't really dating or anything but still lay with each other. Starting to keep their nights separate would make it easier the next time that they had to leave, they both knew, but it had become a habit to be so close.

"It must be the fliers," Luxa said drowsily, feeling him awake. "Right?"

Gregor was just on the edge of sleep himself.

"Maybe," he said. "They didn't say anything about it specifically. It's just a suspicion."

"If 'ultrasonic' means a pitch higher than we can hear, I do not think it could be any earthly rumbling," Luxa said. "And you told me that it was a pattern. It must be the escaped fliers, having fled so very far."

"Or it could be a trap."

The memories silenced them after that, and they lapsed into sleep.

 _Gregor knew about traps. Over his time as a fighter, he had begun to fall into less of them and set up more of his own. In the jungle, he used echolocation to track further than any of the other guys. He saw the snapped branches, the traces of remnant heat, and knew to follow them._

 _And then they would set traps along those paths. There was an irony to it. In Recon, he looked for traps and went on patrols to keep his side safe. With his new unit, they set the mines and the snares themselves, squatted in bushes with suppressed weapons and swayed with the wind, waiting for the enemy. He was a killer again, and the rager in him loved it._

This dream might have been a dream, or it may have been a memory. Gregor tracked a large group across a river, then they set mines across the path and waited for the enemy to come by again. After a day, the patrol passed by again. These explosives were specially designed to shoot up from the earth and detonate at waist level. Picking over the bodies for intel, the lieutenant called it revenge for the burned village. Gregor didn't have anything to say about it. He still didn't. Sometimes, there was nothing for him to shout when the nightmares woke him. Too many times, he was the monster.

* * *

The next morning, they woke at the same time, having become synchronized at some point in the few weeks they had been together. But Gregor was the only one who left, while Luxa allowed herself the luxury of extra sleep while she could still allot it. She had been shorting herself on sleep for years before this.

Once she was finally out of bed, the relaxation continued into her morning routine. The baths at the palace were far more comfortable than standing in a tub underneath a spigot, but there was something to be said for the brevity of a 'shower'. On this particular day, Luxa's shower was interrupted earlier than expected by a knock at the door.

"Luxa, sweetie," Mrs. Cormaci's voice called. "I need to come in for a while. Gregor's packing my things and I couldn't possibly leave my shower curtains out of the list."

"By all means," Luxa entreated.

In Regalia, people were generally at ease with their bodies. It was not considered polite to be unclothed, but it was common among genders or with trusted friends and family. Luxa had almost immediately counted this Overlander as a friend.

"My son is such a ditz sometimes," she said as she entered. "He tells me he doesn't have shower curtains. Lucky for him he's got a mother who found the perfect ones on sale a month ago."

The curtain was attached to a slightly oxidized metal rod using a series of plastic rings. Luxa took it upon herself to help unfasten it, reaching slightly above her head to do it. Once she found the trick to pulling them apart by the ends, the curtain started to come down quickly.

She had forgotten to twist the knob to 'off' though, and suddenly Mrs. Cormaci was ducking behind the slick patterned sheet, dodging the spray of water with a squeal of surprise. Adding to the chaos, the circles were not all removed from the rod. As she pulled on the curtain to shield herself, Mrs. Cormaci accidentally yanked the rod loose, causing her to stumble and hit the door with a resounding thump.

And then Gregor poked his head in, afraid that Mrs. Cormaci had slipped. As soon as he realized that the shower was on and he caught a flash of Luxa standing there, hands at the rod over her head, the door was slammed shut and only his voice could be heard.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah," Mrs. Cormaci said, with a _whoo_ of relief.

Luxa twisted the knob all the way to the right, cutting off the water just in time to hear the footsteps as they ran off towards the door.

Mrs. Cormaci stood slowly, a solemn look on her face.

"I swear that wasn't supposed to happen," she said.

Luxa returned the solemn look with a stare. She could hardly imagine anyone planning out something on that level of confusion. Not that she truly minded anyway. There was no one here to judge the little mishap that had just occurred.

The stare-down broke out into a giggle, then full on laughter.

"It is of no matter," Luxa said in between breaths of air. "In truth, Gregor is probably the most put-out of all of us."

If she closed her eyes and tried, she could still remember how the blush had risen in his cheeks so many years ago. It was hard to imagine that his sensitivity had changed.

Dried off and dressed in generously donated clothes, Luxa looked for Gregor around the usual places in the building. Not waiting for the elevator, not in the laundry room. Donning a pair of sunglasses and pulling up the collar on her coat, she ventured outside into the light.

She found who she was looking for, standing in a loose half-circle with a couple of men who were a few years older than him. Their caps and jackets were the same color, so Luxa guessed that they were part of the same group.

Watching him from the slightly shaded entrance, Luxa saw a different Gregor than she had ever seen before. He looked younger in comparison to the others, but he was speaking with a certain narrow-eyed bravado that she had never seen him use before. Eventually, one of the men noticed her watching and nudged Gregor. There was some kind of joke made (at his expense, not her own), and he dropped his head for a moment.

But when he was looking back up, a spark was in his eyes. He gestured his head, as if requesting for her to stand by him.

"Hey guys, this is my friend Luxa. She's from out of town, but I'm showing her around while she's here."

She shook their hands, finding that they were surprisingly respectful, compared to how much they were making sport of Gregor.

"Lucks-a?" one of them asked, wincing as he got it wrong. "Are you Greek? You don't got a Greek nose."

The other one smiled wide as a flash of recognition went off in his head.

"Wait, I remember that name..." he said. "Don't you remember, Vinny?"

The other man took a second to catch on but then his voice went up an octave with enthusiasm.

"Now I do! This is the one, then, huh?"

Gregor suddenly looked panicked, and stammered out a response.

"No wait, that's not the one-"

"Not the one?" Vinny asked. "Jeez, kid, I'm not old enough to forget. We were bugging you about girls that one time, like five years ago."

"Hey, I only started asking out of gen-u-ine concern," the other man interjected. "But you were being such a kid about the subject we couldn't drop it."

Vinny turned to Luxa, struggling to keep from laughing.

"We just kept asking him every day- 'Find a girl yet?' and just being real dicks about it," Vinny said, watching her reaction carefully.

"He was sixteen, seventeen at the time," the other man added. "Most everybody I knew had at least _tried_ to get with someone. But this kid-"

"He just wouldn't!" Vinny exclaimed. "We start asking him all sorts of questions about it, just trying to find out what's up with him."

"Finally we corner him one Friday night after this real doozy of a job- fourth floor brownstone with a full truck of shelves and at least five different pieces of furniture."

Luxa had just enough knowledge of the Overland to keep up with the story, nodding when she understood something.

"We figured after a job like that, we were pretty much brothers," Vinny said. "So we guilt-trip him. Finally, he tells us the big secret."

"The reason why he hasn't been going for it like any other kid his age," the other man explains.

"He says he wasn't over the last girl," Vinny explains, getting a little more serious. "Turns out, this girl was from back before high school."

The two movers gave each other a look, while Gregor shifted from side to side, fixed on his toes. Luxa realized with guilt that Gregor never had let go of his memories of her. She had burdened him even after he left the Underland.

"We try to tell him its entirely different as a teen, that he's wasting his time, but this is the one time he put his foot down," the other man explained.

"Usually, we can just keep joshing him for hours," Vinny said. "But he was ready to fight on this one. We dropped it. But who'd have known we'd see the very same girl, years later?"

"Coincidences, man."

"Yeah," Vinny agreed. "Coincidences are some crazy shit."

There was a reflective moment but then a horn honked and everyone shelved their reveries for the moment.

"Let's get this stuff packed before I get another ticket. I'm _this_ close to losing my license, I swear."

* * *

Minutes after the moving truck finally took off into the gloom of the poorly lit street, Mrs. Cormaci's son came to pick her up.

She shared one last hug and a kiss on the cheek with her former guests before getting in the car. With her window rolled down, she had one last message for them.

"Gregor, I know I gave you a big story about Vittorio's old weapons, but please don't be afraid to let go of them when the time comes. And Luxa, I don't know if I'll see you again, but be sure to let that rat know that I think he's a necessary part of the peace down there."

It was a strange choice in parting words, but Gregor knew that Mrs. Cormaci had a strange knack for knowing exactly what the future called for.

She had left a spare key to the front door with Gregor. Apparently, his family's old room was vacant because the previous tenants thought there was a vermin infestation. If he ever needed a place to stay for just a night in the city, it was certainly an option.

But for now, they were headed back out of his home town. There was a regional train that would take them to Philadelphia and his uncle would pick them up there.

Gregor watched Luxa as she thumbed the corner of her ticket, again and again.

"Is it bothering you?" Gregor asked. "I can carry both of them."

Luxa instantly pocketed hers in her hand-me-down bell-bottom jeans.

"I do not mean to fret," she said. "But I must say that I am nervous."

"Nervous?" Gregor asked. "About going to Virginia?"

She nodded in agreement and Gregor had to flag down a taxi before she could explain.

"Yeah, it's probably going to be a little sunnier there," Gregor admitted. "But you can stay inside if you want. It's not even planting season, so you'll have plenty of company."

Luxa shook her head.

"Perhaps company is what worries me most."

The taxi came to a red light, slamming on the breaks as Gregor considered Luxa's potential concerns. The further they got from New York, the further they were going from Regalia and her familiar life as sovereign. Reuniting with his family was an additional burden. Sure, the initial meetup could be nice, but once Gregor talked to his parents about the organization and his decision to remain involved with Regalia, their treatment towards Luxa might change. He could tell she was enjoying the 'common man' treatment in the Overland.

They got to Penn Station, where there was a brief moment of panic just before boarding the train. They were asking for identification on all boarding passengers. But Gregor was surprised when Luxa pulled a New York ID card, complete with a picture of her. The organization really was keeping an eye out for them, all the way up to identification.

The second unexpected event occurred as Gregor turned over his identification.

"Gregor Kent?" the officer said aloud, as if she was trying to place the name. "Wait, are you _that_ Gregor Kent?"

"Yes," he admitted. He didn't imagine there would be too many other people named Gregor Kent around.

"Thank you for your service," she said, returning his card and shaking his hand.

Luxa was perplexed. Gregor had not told her any details about the previous four years he had spent as a warrior (although she had not pressed him for details). But if his name was recognizable to officials, Luxa knew that there was some element of fame involved that she was not privy to.

Rather than sit in their assigned seats for the hour-and-a-half it would take to get to Philadelphia, they moved to the observation car after the conductor came through. It was special because practically every surface of the train car had been turned into wide windows.

The sun had set long ago and they would be in tunnels for a while, but there were still plenty of new things to see. As proof, the train took ten minutes to get out to the surface. From the passing lights, Luxa could see the silhouetted form of hundreds upon hundreds of leafy branches.

"I thought that greenery anywhere was limited," Luxa whispered, more to herself than Gregor, who had begun reading one of the books that she had already completed.

 _As rare as trees,_ Vikus often said. But the rules were different here. In this land of plenty, what, exactly, was rare?

Certainly not resources, it seemed. A train was made with steel and rode on unending lines of rails. The labor and resources involved in just an hour of this journey probably eclipsed some of the most cherished buildings in Regalia.

Suddenly, Luxa found herself very bored of the unchanging landscape of shadow outside her window. She looked to Gregor, who was leaned into the slim paper-backed book, his eyes tracking words across the page.

Eventually, he looked up and met her eyes. The intense focus from before vanished in an eyeblink, replaced by warm affection.

"What?" Gregor asked, smiling.

"Are you enjoying the _Meditations_?" Luxa asked.

"I'm not that far in," he admitted, looking out of the window instead of admitting it to her face. "But it does sound like the kind of thing that would go over well in Regalia."

"Oh?" Luxa asked, feigning surprise. When she had first read it for herself, she had came to the same conclusion. Although it was not widely read, the ideals within were as familiar to Regalians as their own hands.

"You know, 'stoic' was always the word that came to mind when I thought of you all. Everybody clearly tried to be reasonable, even in the face of some really terrible things."

Luxa nodded in agreement. Her tutors had always implored her to use her head rather than her heart. That is, they wanted her to avoid the pitfall of 'passion'. In the face of death and pain, she could stand resolute, just so long as 'reason' remained in control.

"And everything seems so balanced in the book," Gregor continued. "The guy who wrote it was an emperor, but he's always talking about being humble and not indulging."

"Indulgence has been the eternal enemy of rulers," Luxa pronounced simply. "When kings and queens abandon their duties in favor of personal pleasures, they are in fact discarding the bond to their people that privileged them so."

The words mocked her even as she spoke them. Although it may have been ordered by the council and Ripred, her stay in the Overland had certainly been an indulgence thus far. It was all she could do not to tell Gregor of the conflict; she knew that the path of a queen was the only one she could take.

Like the rail-road beneath her, Luxa's path was not always straight, yet it was iron-wrought nonetheless. And upon it she led her subjects and Regalia's entire legacy forward.

The trees that had so swiftly appeared eventually were gone themselves. In their place, miles of concrete structures, buildings and bridges and any number of things. Unlike Regalia, life would not always be found in these places. Some were abandoned, with windows of shattered glass. Luxa wondered if the tangled assembly of brightly-colored paints on some of these places was art, or vandalism.

The city sprung forth in front of her eyes as they passed it, another distant huddle of tall, brightly lit towers. It was not New York, but it astounded Luxa all the same.

"Surely not every city is like this?" Luxa asked, pointing at the sky-scrapers. She had thought New York City was a singular example.

"Yeah, you only find those in the biggest cities."

She remembered looking at the atlas Gregor had shown her as he tried to explain the scope of his world. In her head she could see the thousands of lighted cities from high in the sky, millions of stories that she would not be a part of. It was not disheartening. It only steeled her resolve. If there comparatively few lives that she could reach out and directly touch, all the better. The resolve carried her out through the station and out to the street, where an old and battered vehicle awaited them.

* * *

 **A/N: Due to the brevity of these chapters, the next batch will be released in three days.**


	7. Chapter 7 : Chilled

With one final tug, the shrub was finally ripped from the Earth, sending up a spray of rich soil as the roots were yanked in one go. Gregor lost his balance and fell backwards, the dirt clods showering on him.

As he got to his feet, rubbing his rear (where the snakebite had long since healed), Gregor felt the silence surrounding him on the yard. There was no one there to comment on his mistake and no one to ask if he was okay. He was fine, of course, but he was bad at dealing with any kind of suffering alone. Being able to talk to someone about it would have been better.

Even still, the spill he had taken was forgotten as soon as the dust was slapped out of his jeans and shaken it off of his shirt. There was plenty more weeding to be done. Gregor had the misfortune of being at home for his family's seasonal cleaning, a weeklong affair. It was still too early in the season to be planting, so Gregor was given a whole mess of groundskeeping tasks to complete.

The sun was still high enough to force Luxa inside the house, although Gregor had seen her come out onto the front porch every now and then to wave at him and watch as he got the yard back into shape. It was easier in some ways to be outside mindlessly pulling weeds or trimming hedges, Gregor decided. The alternative was the tense silence inside the house.

After Luxa's arrival one late night, there had been a storm of confusion followed by a fog of awkwardness with the family. With Lizzie at college, and Boots and his father being away during the day, there was just his mother (on her part-time schedule) and his uncle (on his wild-man's schedule). Naturally, this made things difficult.

Both Luxa and his Mom had unvoiced disagreements, and watching them try to socialize was like watching two people in a minefield. No one wanted to say anything offensive (or do anything offensive), so most of their conversations ended one or two questions in, just to avoid anything serious.

It only got worse when Gregor was around, with Luxa and his mother trying to get him involved and help them find a middle ground. Rather than forcefully extend the awkwardness by jumping in, he gladly dove into groundskeeping, suggesting that Luxa get used to the climate and sun before coming out to help him. It wasn't his coolest move, but the work still needed to be done.

With most of the yard successfully clear, Gregor felt he deserved a break. He settled into the swing bench on the front porch, using a handtowel to wipe away the sweat that had beaded up on his forehead. It was pretty busy around the house now, and he would do anything to have some time away. There were two things stopping him from getting into the family truck right then and driving down to the mine: First, the gear that he needed hadn't come in yet. Second, Boots had managed to wheedle a promise out of him to let her tag along with him and Luxa when he went to look at the abandoned mine.

So until the express post arrived and Boots came home, Gregor had no better option than working. Looking out from the shaded porch, he figured there were worse places to work. After a harsh winter, it seemed like everything was coming back to life, the grass a delicate shade of newborn green and the trees starting to fill up. The air was clean and the sky was dotted with little puffy clouds. He had denied himself these little moments of peace in the past, too focused on other things, but this was a moment to sit back and _feel_ it.

The screen door swung open slowly, and Gregor saw Luxa come out to the bench, a tall glass in her hand.

"Hail, Gregor," Luxa greeted jokingly. She looked more relaxed than he had ever seen her here.

"Well, 'hail' to you too," Gregor joked as she handed him the glass. With a sniff, he smelled limes.

The glass was slick with condensation, a by-product of the ice and the pale green limeade inside. Gregor took a sip and relished the taste of sugar and citrus, then put the glass to his forehead. It wasn't that hot out, but he still liked the sensation.

"You have no idea how much I needed this," Gregor said, taking another sip, feeling his tongue buzz with the chill.

"Grace said that it was your favorite."

"Have you had any yet?" he asked.

Luxa shook her head and Gregor held the glass out to her. Instead of taking it into her heads, she sat next to him and brought her lips to it, her teeth making a _clink_ as they collided with the rim. He became entranced in every little detail of her, the way her throat moved as she swallowed and how her tongue darted out to clean her pale-plum lips.

"Ah!" she exclaimed. "I see why you like it so."

Her eyes were wide with delight as she tried to explain what was tart in the Underland. Then, Luxa closed her eyes, trying to recall just what it reminded her of.

And when she opened them, Gregor's face was moving towards hers. She met him halfway with a kiss. And there it was: the rush of warmth across her blushed face and the tickle of delight that could only be described with that novel word: 'electric'. It had happened effortlessly, naturally.

But she was the one who withdrew first. Seeing Gregor's confusion morph into a somber understanding almost made her wish she could return to the kiss. But even one more moment like that would be too many for her in this situation.

"I am sorry," she said. "But we ought not to-"

"Yeah, you're right," Gregor interrupted, his words light but his tone sharp.

He gulped down about half of the chilled limeade and was gone from the porch before she could stop him.

"You can have the rest," he called out, garden shears now in his hands, clearly trying his best to seem unworried. Her guilt was only increased for it.

She took another sip. The drink seemed too sour, now that they had taken it halfway in.

* * *

"Yo," Boots said as the door slammed behind her. Luxa was startled by the sound and dropped _The Art of War_ right in front of her seat.

"Sorry," the teen girl told Luxa. "I woulda closed it myself, but there was a package by the gate."

Boots hefted a box made from rigid cardboard, trying to show that it definitely required two hands to carry. After setting it next to the door, she looked around the room, brushing her hands against her denim pants.

"If you're looking for your mother, she left for the veterinary office," Luxa offered.

"The veterinarian's office?" Boots wondered. "How about Gregor? I didn't see him from the gate."

"I do not know," Luxa said, but she could imagine the farm had many places he could have gone. If he was still vexed with her, Gregor may have even chose the furthest locations.

"Wanna come with me and look?" Boots offered. "Lemme change out of my school clothes first, though."

The task took less time than Luxa would have expected, because the Overlander girl just opened the closet near the entryway, trading her laced shoes for mud-daubed boots and her jacket for grass-stained overalls.

"Don't worry about getting your own pair," she said, noting Luxa's concern. "Unless you wanna help me muck the stalls out."

Mucking sounded like it wasn't the cleanest of chores, and Luxa didn't have too many items of clothing. It seemed like Boots would be carrying most of the equipment. She was given a carrot, though.

"That's for Cinnamon," Boots explained unhelpfully.

Luxa had no idea who or what 'Cinnamon' was. Reckless speed seemed to be one of Boot's defining traits.

But regardless of her attentiveness, the girl clearly knew her way around the farm. First, they stopped by the chicken coop, where the beady-eyed birds strutted. The eggs had already been collected that morning, and so they did not dally long there.

In the damp shade of the barn, Luxa saw her first horse in the flesh. Her name was Cinnamon, a light brown mare that eyed the both of them calmly. First Boots fed her a carrot, careful not to let her fingers get in the way, patting its muzzle when the last of the treat had disappeared.

"Here, you try it," Boots said, and Luxa followed her example, even touching the beast on the muzzle. It nickered in response. The horse eyed her, in a way that Luxa felt was friendly. It demonstrated more intelligence than a cow, but it was also obvious that it would not be speaking.

Boots started shoveling out the stall as Luxa cautiously patted the horse. Even with her attention on the mare, Luxa could tell that Boots at thirteen was similar to Gregor around the same age. The girl kept on task until the job was done, quick and sharp with her shovel, confident beyond her years. Finally, she put aside the shovel and resupplied the hay. Luxa sneezed as the pollen rose in the air.

"Well, I let Cinnamon out this morning, so Gregor or somebody must have came through and got her back in."

"He is further yet?" Luxa asked.

"Let's go find my uncle. He probably saw him last."

They found the stocky man in the field, digging a trench by hand. Luxa hadn't learned much about him, but he seemed to prefer solitude and quiet. He wore the same checker-boarded type shirt that Boots was sporting and the shovel in his hands also seemed natural.

"Gregor? I saw him about an hour ago. Said something about some part of the fence being down."

With a respectful nod to Luxa, he went right back to digging. She eyed his work as she passed. The soil here seemed much richer and full of life, but it was also tougher to work with.

While they didn't see Gregor at the tool shed, the makeshift search party noted that a bundle of wire and the only pair of pliers were missing from the collection.

"Jeez, it's gonna take days to look around the fence," Boots complained.

"Surely not days?" Luxa asked, shocked.

"Nah," Boots admitted with a wry grin. "But it's going to take too long if we try to hoof it."

Going to the adjoining garage by the house, Boots climbed up onto a green motor vehicle of some sort, patting the wide seat that lay behind a set of levers.

"Know you the operation of that?" Luxa asked as puzzlement flashed over the younger girl's face at the words.

"Uh... I know how to drive a tractor, yeah. It's not as easy as a steering wheel, but it's pretty easy once you know how to work it."

They pulled out of the garage and started steadily rolling parallel to the fence. Boots interrupted the silence first.

"So where are you from, really?" she asked. "I know my brother said you were from New York but I'm having a hard time believing anyone talks like that there."

Boots was bit more more impulsive than her siblings. It wasn't a bad thing, most of the time. But Gregor had made Luxa swear that the Underland would be kept a secret from his youngest sister, so Luxa would not reward this inquisitive child just yet.

"She deserves to have a chance at being normal," Gregor had said. In keeping with that promise, Luxa had to come up with a plausible story to explain herself.

"I am from New York," she said. "But my... neighborhood is very special and we have unique traditions."

"Hmm," Boots said, noncommittally. She did not seem to believe the lie, but said nothing more.

They reached one corner of the allotment and the tractor turned a wide, lazy corner.

"So are you and my brother dating?" Boots asked.

Luxa recalled Gregor using the term once, long ago. To 'date' someone. It was somewhat like courting, although unlike Regalia, there was little involvement from families and the authorities. Most tellingly, 'dating' was often not expected to result in anything serious in the Overland.

If his little sister was asking, Luxa knew that she had to tell the truth. Despite the earlier events of the day, they were not courting each other, nor were they 'dating', unless one counted their various trips around the city 'dates'.

"Okay, if you're not dating, why are you guys so close?" Boots asked.

"We knew each other well, in youth."

"What, you guys were friends? How come I never heard of you? Wait, were you guys an item?"

Luxa cast her eyes around looking for something to distract the youth's incisive observations, settling on an area of the fence ahead where the wire bore a lighter color.

"Ah, look at that!" she said, pointing. "Is that section newly made?"

They stopped to inspect it and Luxa noted the precision of his work there, metal wrapped tightly around wooden posts and then clipped with an artful twist. It was deftly done, and she had to admit to herself that she was too fond of Gregor, that even his work affected her.

Boots spotted a shoe-print in a patch of dirt nearby and pointed to a trail of disturbed grass.

"Oh, he went off to the range. He usually doesn't do that on weekdays."

They boarded the tractor again and followed the tracks to a shaded dugout where a small shelter covered an ancient ironwrought table. Crouched at its end was Gregor, looking down the sight of an Overland musket.

" _Or perhaps it is called a rifle,"_ Luxa thought to herself, based on the television she had seen.

They kept a short distance away, watching as Gregor fired the weapon at a distant bale of hay. The _crack_ of exploding gunpowder did not ring her ears at this distance, although it had quite a bit in the palace. She shivered involuntarily at the memory their fight against the large twister, remembered only through the sounds of the battle.

Gregor turned his head from the targets, and seeing the two arrivals, took off a pair of large earmuffs.

"Hey, guys," Gregor greeted sheepishly. He was probably not expecting to be found, and maybe still embarrassed over their kiss.

"Hey, Gregor," Boots said. "Are we finally gonna go to that mine? There's a big box with your name on it at home."

"A package?" Gregor asked, finally setting the rifle down. "They said it could arrive tomorrow."

Before they left, Gregor gestured to the firearm.

"There's a shot left, if either of you want it."

"I have never fired a... rifle," Luxa professed.

Gregor looked at his sister.

"You know Mom would ground me for eternity if I even touched one of your guns."

Both of them looked to Luxa. She decided she was about to get her first lesson. Joining Gregor in the shade and shedding her hat and glasses, he pointed out the different parts of the gun.

"This is only a lever action," Gregor explained. "There's faster ones out there."

She had seen all sorts of guns in the television recordings Mrs. Cormaci had made, but now was the first time she was coming to understand them. Gregor was quite knowledgeable with them. Was _this_ that integral to a warrior in the Overland?

"She's making a face, Gregor!" Boots warned from Luxa's left.

"Boots!" Gregor exclaimed, but then checked Luxa's expression.

"So these are meant to kill people," Luxa reasoned. "And there forms more destructive beyond this?"

"This one is just a varmint rifle- for vermin," Gregor said defensively. "Plus, most of the guns that exist aren't being used to kill people."

Luxa figured the logic unsound but was not sure how important the intended purpose of a weapon actually mattered. In Regalia, preserving life was important. Because humans so rarely turned against their own, the question of self-defense usually had to do with outside enemies. It was a thought she had not directly addressed before: What exactly had Gregor's life as a warrior been like, facing people who appeared closer to him than gnawers or cutters had been?

Putting aside the thought, she followed his instructions and brought the wooden stock to her shoulder. With one eye, she could look down the length of it, aligning the metal points towards the same target. She pulled slowly at the trigger, finding that it required more force than she thought necessary, with multiple mechanical stages inside. When the powder went off she was caught by surprise, the wood kicking her in the shoulder.

She brought the weapon down gently, laying it on the table and working her arm in a circle, feeling an ache that she knew would not turn into a bruise.

"It gets easier," Gregor said.

"Ah," Luxa said, but did not ask for further elaboration.

Perhaps it was because her ears were covered or because there was no threat, but there had been no sentiment other than a mild annoyance at the recoil.

Gregor took the weapon, working the metal lever outwards to make sure there was nothing left in the chamber. After he was done packing it, he walked out to the target.

 _Her shot was pretty far from the center, but it was a solid first attempt._

* * *

On the way back to the house, Boots kept pestering him about the mine.

"So you're saying I can ride along, but I can't go in with you two? That's lame."

"Yeah, it's an abandoned mine," Gregor said, getting a little annoyed. "Of course I'm not going to let my kid sister wander around someplace like that."

"Oh, but you two can handle yourself?" Boots asked sarcastically.

"Yes," they said at the same time.

Gregor and Luxa made eye contact for the first time since the broken-off kiss. They agreed on protecting Boots, at least.

"Then what were you waiting for?" his little sister whined. "You could have just gone already and spared me the disappointment."

Gregor sighed. Boots was at the age where she felt entitled to an explanation on anything.

"I needed the people at work to send me some equipment," Gregor said. "But I can go tonight if that package you got was the real thing."

Back inside the house he slit the tape open, pulling the foam packaging and revealing a bend of brass underneath. It wasn't the gear he was waiting for it. It was a saxophone. Not dinged and scratched like the one he once played back in New York- this was a alto sax in good condition.

"Your tools?" Luxa asked doubtfully.

Gregor shook his head.

"It's a musical instrument. But I didn't order anything like this."

Boots slammed the closet door behind her, overalls and boots stowed away.

"I wasn't supposed to tell you, but it's a surprise present from Dad."

Gregor stowed it away. When the family got together, he would take it out. Luxa disappeared, saying something about 'resting her eyes', and Boots had already retreated to her room, leaving him to get all the work done.

Mom wouldn't be back from the vet's office until late, and Gregor knew his dad was the sponsor for the school science club that met this afternoon. Making dinner would be his responsibility, seeing as his uncle saved cooking for special occasions only.

He wasn't worried. Chopping vegetables was easy, and there were a few hocks of venison in the freezer.

He remembered something Mrs. Cormaci had cooked once- it wasn't exactly a family recipe, but she had friends who had passed along the details. Following her example, he layered tomatoes and vegetables across the bottom of a ceramic pot, then placed the cut sections of venison on top.

Without any white wine around, he decided to go off-recipe. He poured a bunch of stock in the pot, enough to let the venison simmer for a while, adding salt and garlic in what he hoped was an acceptable amount.

He didn't cook often, but he had a lot of experience by observation. It didn't hurt that he had a high tolerance for any freshly-cooked food after four years of 'Meals, Ready to Eat'.

The pot was left in the oven to simmer. He would check on it in an hour. Until then, Gregor thought he could sneak a nap on the couch in the living room.

His phone rang, but just once. Frank had left a voicemail.

"The parcel service sent an update. Expect the package early tomorrow morning."

Finally, Gregor could push all of his anticipation and worry to the next day. Whatever was in the mines would have to wait just a bit longer.

His dad was the first to come back, taking a deep sniff.

"Something smells amazing," he said. "What is it?"

" _Osso Bucco_ ," Gregor said. "Kind of."

His mom was also there, strangely. She was just in time to hear him.

"Osso Bucco?" she asked. "Wow, you're really expanding your culinary horizons, Gregor."

"Mom?" Gregor asked. It wasn't usual to see her back so early when she took evening shifts at the vet. "You and Dad showed up at the same time, for once."

"There's a reason for that," his father said. "She wasn't actually at the vet. We went to the doctor's."

"The doctor? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," his mother said. "But me and your father scheduled an appointment for the only time we could both be there."

The gears turned in Gregor's head and he came to the solution easily.

"You're expecting?" he asked.

"What did I tell you?" his father said to his mom, grinning. "We wouldn't even have to tell him."

"They're giving us a due date about seven months from now," his mom said, beaming. "We were trying for a while..."

"Wow," Gregor said. "Who else knows?"

"We'll tell Boots as soon as she comes out for dinner. Your uncle already heard."

Gregor was quiet for a moment, processing the new knowledge. He would be getting another sibling, his parents another mouth to feed. There wouldn't be any rooms left for the baby, seeing as Gregor was already occupying the one meant for guests.

It's not like they needed an extra room right away, even once the baby came. But space would just be even more limited. Gregor decided to nip the problem in the bud.

"I guess the timing works out," he said. "I've been thinking of moving out..."

His mom rushed over to him and softly placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Gregor, honey, don't worry about it. We were thinking about putting the crib in our room to begin with-"

"Mom, it's not like that-"

"Gregor, don't worry about us," his dad said. "You have as much of a right to be here as any of us. We're a family. You don't have to worry about being inconvenient."

He read pity in their faces. They knew life for him hadn't exactly been smooth. They couldn't really identify with his wounds, but could see when he hurt. They didn't want their son to feel like he didn't have a home.

"I'm going to move back to New York," Gregor said. "Remember that company I talked about? They have an office there."

The pity eased up. A job, a place to belong. But they knew Gregor didn't know that many people in the city. Both his mom and his dad had spent most of their life there. They knew how lonely it could be in the city.

"And it's right by the Underland," Gregor said. "Actually, that's the reason I'll be there."

Pity to panic.

"That might be the only reason I'm heading there."

He could see his mom's shock, the question forming in his father's throat.

"It's Luxa. I... I want to be with her."

"The _Queen_ Luxa?" his dad asked with emphasis. He made sure Gregor didn't forget just what he was suggesting.

"Yeah, she's queen of Regalia and I want to be with her. In fact, I think I want to marry her."

Saying the words aloud, he felt sheepish. It was the first time he had admitted it. Maybe it had been true to him for a while.

"Huh," his father said, all his immediate questions answered. He turned inward to think about it.

"Oh, Gregor," his mom whispered, defeated. "You really did love her."

"I still do," Gregor said.

"I believe you," she said, keeping most of the doubt out of her voice. "But does she know?"

"Not yet. I don't know how to tell her."

"Or how much to tell her," his dad added.

"Well, if she's been holding out like for a whole ten years like you have, you'd better hope you tell her as much as you can, as soon as you can," his mom said. "Things move at an entirely different pace down there. I went from working my second shift up here to being a plague victim real quick."

"I wanted to tell her first," Gregor said. "But I guess things can move fast up here, too."

There was the sound of a sizzle. Gregor cupped a hand to his ear, but the sound was benign, coming from the oven. Dinner was ready.

As the whole family clustered around the pot, Gregor sensed Luxa just behind his shoulder, done resting. He took the heavy lid off and a cloud of steam escaped into the air, carrying a delicious scent with it. Gregor looked over for Luxa's reaction- he'd be lying if he said most of the effort wasn't meant for her.

Her face was deep-red and her eyes dripped with wetness.

"Are you all right?" Gregor asked.

"Yes," she said, wiping away tears. "The steam took me by surprise."


	8. Chapter 8 : Machinery Begins to Move

The dish Gregor had cooked was delicious, Luxa had to admit. But that was not the most savory morsel of the evening. It was what had come earlier- she had been in Boots room, looking at a book of sketches the girl had drawn with charcoal. A distant thud alerted them to a new entrant in the house, and Boots revealed a special trick of hers.

Her room used to be a large storage room before its refurbishment, so it did not have all of the affordances of the other rooms. However, the thinness of her walls and floors actually gave its resident some assistance in eavesdropping.

Lying next to a jamb, she had shown Luxa how she could displace a single plank and thus listen to conversation on the level below them. The first surprise was certainly something: their family was expanding yet again. Luxa was glad for Grace and the rest of her family. A gravid woman in the Underland was one of the most protected and respected people. She was certain there was a similar protection for expectant women here.

But the second revelation was almost beyond her ability to process. When Gregor told his parents that he loved her, he was breaking the wall she had been building ever since he had left. Suddenly, one of her fantasies no longer had a reason to be suppressed. He would not have to be an awkwardly mere passer-by in her life. In fact, he was telling his own parents that he wanted to be with her. If their inner hopes could be realized, neither would have to leave the other to isolation ever again.

Boots was too surprised by both reveals to talk. She took Luxa's hand as they left the room, but was so stunned that Luxa could only guess at her reasons. Was she welcoming a potentially new member of her family? Perhaps she wanted to share her surprise with another person. Either way, Luxa was glad that she had reforged a connection with the youth.

After the delicious meal, she had accompanied Gregor and his father to their porch, where they managed to hide their caution about the many secrets floating around the household. Instead, they were focused on the _saccs-o-fone_ that had arrived, looking at the thing under the yellow electric lights.

"It was supposed to arrive months ago, but there were all sorts of mix ups," the father explained to his son. "But why don't you give it a try?"

Gregor blew a note. It sounded like a duck honking.

"Was that concert A?" his dad asked. "Sounds flat."

Gregor blew again, his fingers arrayed in some pattern on the brass pads. This time the sound reminded her of a horn with a little more resonance.

"It's the mouthpiece," Gregor said. He pushed the thing he had just blown into a little further into the instrument. Then he blew the note again.

"Wow!" his dad exclaimed. "That sounds perfect."

"I don't remember any of the fingerings," Gregor said apologetically.

"That's normal," his dad said. "I haven't played for weeks now either."

But eventually, Gregor got some form of control over the instrument, either remembering or learning how to create certain tones.

She had never before seen him as a musician. But there were times that he seemed to move with music- dancing at Hazard's first party, or when he first cleaved the bloodballs. But when Gregor actually killed, there was no pattern, no grace. There was more artistry in his amateur attempts with the horn on this porch than there was in any of his bloodied sword-swings.

She didn't think she could tell him now. He was always so apologetic about himself, about the things he had done. She wouldn't tell him that he was better with the sword, because with practice she believed he was capable of many things.

The sounds he was playing stopped reminding her of honking animals and became a tune. It was mournful, but it moved with both languor and a rhythm. It took a few attempts before he found his footing with it, but Gregor gradually changed from stiffly working at the metal in his hand to weaving his body along with it the music. The song caught on two notes- Luxa saw Gregor's father mouth words 'I know' again and again along with them.

The song ended with a refrain, and Gregor let his arms drop, the instrument held by a harness.

Gregor's audience of two applauded and he grinned in that self-conscious way of his.

"Amazing," she praised. "Is that a named composition?"

"Ain't no Sunshine," Gregor's father explained. "As in 'Ain't no sunshine when she's gone'."

"It's pretty easy to remember," Gregor said quickly, "I played it all the time back then."

 _He means to say that I should not take the title of the song so literally. He is still reticent about his wants._

That night, Boots gave Luxa the bed, opting to take the floor. There was not space enough for Luxa to offer her a berth, as she once had done with Nerissa. Yet there was still the emotional warmth that came with sharing a room. She could sense Boots awake still, floorboards creaking as she moved restlessly.

"Luxa?" she finally asked.

"Yes?" she responded. "What ails you?"

"What's the Underland?"

Luxa let a deep breath out through her nose. It would be difficult to evade an answer there, especially when there was now a chance the girl would become a sister-in-law. She began the story as Gregor had, in a hot day in a crowded apartment.

* * *

The red pickup came to a halt at a metal gate.

"Did we blow a tire?" Boots asked.

"No," Gregor said. "We're at the entrance."

He had a set of GPS coordinates. The gate he had pulled up to was the first. The mine would be quite a ways within the parcel of land.

He undid the padlock with the key that arrived that morning and motioned for Boots to drive the truck in so that he could close it behind them.

Getting back into the driver's seat, Gregor looked over at Luxa, who was intently peering at the map.

"Cartography is not so prominent at home," Luxa said. "In a cavern, one's mind is their best map."

"Yeah," Boots agreed from the seat between them. "The Overland is set up totally different. It's like, the opposite of the Underland. We're constantly on the outside and you guys are always on in the inside."

Luxa nodded with surprised approval. It was spoken simply, but the words meant more than were immediately obvious. Boots was not as simple as her name implied.

The truck was winding back and forth up a switchback road. The mine hadn't been in operation for decades now, but there was a special tectonic sensor array that had been installed soon after the operation shut down.

The road took a sudden bend around a copse of trees. On the other end, a gigantic pit in the Earth suddenly loomed below them.

"What is this?" Luxa asked, shocked. The trees and grass of the hill were replaced with a series of terraces that descended downwards like giant steps.

"This is a strip mine. Or was a strip mine."

"Had no clue they got this big," Boots remarked, her voice held back in a gasp. "It's a lot smaller in pictures."

"Is this a location of great fame?" Luxa asked.

"Not really," Gregor said. "I didn't even know it was here until a few days ago."

For years and years, the hilltop had been ground down by machines to get at the minerals below. It was deepest at the center and then rose up a few yards. The hilltop was gone, but nature was slowly regaining the land.

"So this is the cost..." Luxa said to herself, but Gregor knew exactly at what she was getting at.

Things must have appeared amazing in Overland in a lot of ways. But there was no true 'land of plenty'. Luxa must have wondered just how so many could live on the surface, how so many buildings could be built. There was a reason it seemed impossible to have a million lights shining at once to an outsider. They were at the edge of one of those reasons.

There was another switchback cut into the pit, made comfortably wide to fit the trucks taking ore and slurry out. They were going slow enough not to pop their ears, but Gregor could feel the changing altitude well enough.

At the very bottom of the pit, a tunnel awaited them. This was the second pair of coordinates.

Gregor tossed the keys to his sister.

"If we're not back by sunset, call Dad," he said.

"So you mean 'we' not including me?" Boots asked. "You promised to bring me with you."

"And now you're here," Gregor said. "You didn't think I was going to change my mind about taking you down, did you?"

"I kind of was," Boots said, crossing her arms as the other two left the cabin. "But isn't it more dangerous to leave me out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Just stay in the truck, Boots," Gregor growled. "Trust me, it's safer this way."

Boots frowned right back.

Gregor and Luxa shared a look. They both wanted her safe, especially in _terra icognita._ Its meaning was not lost on their hanger-on.

"Okay, sure," Boots said, waving her hand dismissively. "I'll stay put."

Gregor lifted a case from the bed of the truck. It was filled with extra sensors, instructions, and all the necessary equipment to check on the ultrasonic frequencies. The rolling-shutter door to the mine shaft was secured at the bottom with another padlock, but it slid up along its track smoothly. Luxa found a switch screwed into a wooden post and flipped it, causing a line of incandescent bulbs to flicker on, lighting a path straight through.

"That was peculiarly simple," Luxa said.

"What, the lights?" Gregor asked.

"No, convincing your sister to stay in place."

They were advancing carefully down the tunnel, stooping to avoid support beams.

"You're right," Gregor said. "But she keeps her promises, usually. She's probably gonna ask for ice cream to make up for it, though."

There was another door, but this one was locked normally, other than the fact he practically had to shove the key in to press the ancient tumblers inside.

It was an old office, just large enough for one desk. According to his instructions, the computer system was responsible for activating the elevator that would take them down the rest of the way.

The screen flickered to life, a simple monochromatic interface. Gregor entered the ID and password, and the screen blinked in acknowledgment. He enabled the elevator, called it up from the bottom of the shaft, and then brought out the case he had been given.

It was a rigid-framed case, secured by a number-lock. After opening it, it was pretty clear why it needed the security.

As the component list read:  
' _2 (Two) Machetes,  
2 (Two) leg-strap sheathes,_

 _1 (One) Ruggedized flashlight_

 _1 (One) Glow-in-the-dark Chalk_

Gregor handed Luxa a sheathed machete.

"It fastens around your leg," he said, placing it on his left thigh.

After installing the sheath, Luxa drew the machete and inspected it, making a few chops through the air as she got a feel for it. It was single-edged, but seemed sturdy.

"I suppose this will work," Luxa said.

Gregor shrugged in acknowledgment. Better than nothing.

The elevator arrived. It was smaller than expected, but Gregor figured there were other ways to retrieve ore. This had been meant for the miners.

The safety shutter closed after the two boarded and Gregor pulled the lever to descend. It started down with a jerk and a screech of metal. With far too much creaking and clanking, they eventually reached the bottom.

This area was totally unlit. Luxa activated the penlight, checking the corners of the roughly-hewn corridor.

"We have to go to the sensor room first," Gregor said. "They want me to install a bypass."

The seismograph itself was stored within an enclosure, set up to feel the vibrations of the earth and send them to scientists. Frank had told him it was so sensitive that they could detect airplanes when they flew overhead. Once the bypass was installed and confirmed to be communicating with the outside world, the first step of his job was done.

"Now we have to find out what was making the pattern in the first place," Gregor said. "Any ideas on how to start?"

Luxa checked the corridor that led to the elevator. It went on further than the flashlight could illuminate, but side passages opened up fairly frequently in the segment that she could see.

"Does that machine possess a specific range of efficacy?"

Gregor checked his packet under the light, looking through the rows technical data.

"Somebody did the math. Bat frequencies travel less distance, so they're saying the source should be within walking range."

"That is a relief," Luxa said, smiling a bit. "There are basic maneuvers created for searching a new area."

It was definitely an Underlander kind of thing to invent a method for that, but Gregor was glad that there was actually a plan. They would advance down each passage. One they made it 'ten score' paces in, they would mark it and then head back to the next passage.

The idea was that searching in every possible direction would be useful in an area as complicated as a cave. Limiting the number of steps to 200 would ensure that each point of access could be recognized before going too far from the starting point.

"It may take more than a day," Luxa said after they had found six different openings, going in six different directions.

"I'm fine with that," Gregor replied. If any fliers could be found, conditions would improve greatly for Regalia.

And he didn't mind being alone with Luxa here. Even though he was on a mission and absolutely aware of his surroundings, there was a part of him that was enjoying the situation. Was it nostalgia?

Luxa held a hand up, palm facing him.

"I think I can smell something."

Gregor took a deep sniff. He couldn't really smell anything of note, just the usual smell of slightly damp stone. He didn't have the nose for tracking.

"It is familiar," Luxa said, eyes closed. "And reminds me of the fliers."

They rushed forward down the tunnel, Luxa's pace getting faster and faster as the scent obviously got stronger for her. Soon, she was running.

Gregor wasn't that far out of practice, but he was struggling not to be left behind. The race stopped where the tunnel did. It opened up onto a spacious cavern, almost on the scale of the Underland. Even still, there was no way to reach the bottom of it. The tunnel excavator had simply turned around and gone back as soon as the large area was revealed.

"I should have packed my rope," Gregor said.

"It may not be needed," Luxa said. "Listen."

He tried hard to focus on the sounds coming from in front of him. At first, nothing. But then, wingflaps. It sounded so clear that it almost felt like a dream. In the dim glow from the penlight, Gregor saw a light brown bat approach. It hung in the distance for a bit, circling around.

"Hail!" Luxa shouted. "Queen Luxa of Regalia greets you."

"Hail," the flier returned, in the peculiar way that the bats spoke. It remained aloft.

"And who is the other, Queen?" the bat asked. Her suspicion could be understood despite the many feet between them.

"It is none other than Gregor the Overlander."

"The Warrior?"

The bat swooped closer to observe them better.

"I would not forget you anywhere, Overlander," the bat said. "I am called Metanira. I witnessed you twice. Once at the true home of the fliers, and once at the surrender of the gnawers."

"Hello," Gregor said awkwardly. "Nice to meet you."

"What of the rest?" Luxa asked Metanira. "By what means have you become so separated from home?"

"The bees attacked our home alongside the twisters. Their many hives produced sounds that drove us mad. We mindlessly flew for many days down a half-flooded tunnel. Most survived the flight. Queen Andromeda lives, yet we have little in the way of fodder or water."

"Know you the total number of survivors?"

"Less than 1000," Metanira said, hanging above them to speak. "But It must be more than 700. I would offer to take you to our roosting grounds, but I fear I can not make the journey while mounted."

"It is far?"

"Very far indeed, and at a higher level than ours. I am currently scouting for a better location."

Metanira looked at Luxa quickly.

"What brings _you_ here?" Metanira asked.

"I was requested to take refuge in the Overland until the threat of assassination has fallen. The war continues."

"Now that the maddening pulse has stopped sounding, we would wish to rejoin the war. The only obstacle is the flooded passageway we fled across on our flight from Regalia. It is a very long distance to travel, and many were lost to the waters."

Luxa looked crestfallen. Now that she had discovered the remaining fliers, it would be terrible if they were trapped just out of reach.

"Wait," Gregor said. "I think the water level could actually have dropped."

"And what could bring on that change?" Metanira asked. "We felt no disturbances on this side of the Expanse."

"The cutter nests were flooded, by way of the tunnel under Troy," Luxa explained quickly. "The Waterway will have dropped in response."

Gregor realized she was trying to protect his reputation by explaining it herself. He could imagine non-humans being put-out by the newest destructive act by the 'Killers'. If Gregor wanted to ever be known as something other than 'the Warrior', Luxa apparently assumed he would need less chatter about his military actions.

"We have not seen the levels change here," Metanira remarked. "But we have not flown far enough out."

"I will make haste to Regalia," Luxa said. "We will send a scouting party to attempt your journey. If enough of the passage is now dry, I will entreat the other fliers to return. Many of their brethren await them in Regalia."

"That is good news," Metanira said. "I shall pass it on when I return."

"Fly you high, Metanira," Luxa said. "I swear that your situation will not be dire for much longer."

"I will act with the greatest haste," Metanira promised solemnly. She disappeared into the cavern. They watched her as she went out of range, even for Gregor's _clicks_.

"That was strange," Luxa said. "Yet if that truly was a surviving flier and not some phantom, it seems that I will have to return to Regalia and organize the aid party."

"You couldn't just send a note?" Gregor asked plainly. "I mean, if the others still don't think it's safe."

"Know you how to send a note from the Overland?"

"Not really..."

"Neither do I, and there is far too much information to carry in one note. I must communicate this in person."

Gregor said nothing in response. They wordlessly got started back on the way they had come, no longer in any rush.

The penlight started to die out very quickly. Just as they reached the main corridor, it died completely. In most cases, it probably would have been a problem. But Gregor could sense his way through the dark with sound.

Hand-in-hand with Luxa, they pushed back towards the aged elevator. When they reached the shaft, however, there was no sign of it.

No matter how loudly he shouted, he couldn't get a clear vision all the way to the top.

"There's no recall button," Gregor said, arms crossed.

Luxa had let go of his hand a while ago, but he could hear the surety of her steps as she examined the area herself.

"There is a ladder," she announced after a few moments. "I noted it as we descended."

"Oh."

"I suppose our only recourse is to climb."

Gregor grumbled to himself. _How stupid could he be, losing an entire elevator? And now she would have to climb up all the way with him._

A pair of arms that were not his embraced him from behind. He felt the softness of Luxa pressing into him as she squeezed.

"Worry not," her voice assured. "We have resolved a mystery here, and only because of you."

"Thanks," Gregor said, honestly. "But I don't think I would have stumbled across Metanira without you, either."

She said nothing, tightening her grasp just a bit more. It was getting harder for one to ignore the closeness and warmth of the other.

"It's okay, you can let go now," he said, twisting in her hold.

"I wish it not." Her voice seemed playful, but there was firmness to it.

"What?" Gregor was confused. Luxa didn't seem like the type to play games, especially when it seemed like she had regretted both of the times anything resembling romance had sprung up between them.

"The elevator is not the only thing I wish to arrive."

He recognized the deep thumping of his own heart.

"Your sister and I were listening last night through her floor."

Gregor's mind spun. _Was she talking about his parents and the newest addition to the Kent family?_

"Generally, a man interested in becoming King would do well to inform the reigning Queen," she teased.

 _She had heard everything._

"Well, it's the truth," he said, stumbling for words.

"What is?"

"That... uh..." Gregor hesitated for a moment. But almost immediately, he committed himself.

"Luxa, I love you."

In the dark, he could not really view her face. But he could feel her grasp on him loosen, enough so that he could turn around, facing her.

"I know things are crazy in Regalia right now, so it probably couldn't be right away, but I want to be with you."

"You would trade your home for mine?" Luxa asked. "You would accept its responsibilities?"

"I'll do what is needed."

"As a King of Regalia, you would act as the city's devoted guardian?"

"Absolutely."

"And you accept, without exception, all of the duties of a partner to the sovereign?"

"Without exception," Gregor echoed, the formality feeling strange in his mouth. He had made his decision.

Somewhere up above, machinery began to move.

"I also have loved you," Luxa said. "Call me foolish, but I do not know if I stopped for even a moment."

She dropped an arm, no longer squeezing him. In the dark, she moved her hand to his face, her thumb lightly brushing his lips before moving to his jaw.

"I knew that sharing my life could not be easy. I did not wish to burden you further. Anyone would say that you have already given enough to Regalia."

"I gave it freely," Gregor said. "It wasn't out of any kind of obligation."

"And you would still leave the land you fought so hard to return to?"

"It's been a while since the Bane," Gregor said. "Since Ares. I won't say it is perfect, but life there is good enough."

"Just good enough?" Luxa's thumb pushed against his jaw just a bit harder in jest.

"Things can be bad anywhere you go," he said defensively. "I think I've spent enough time in different places to realize that. If you can get hurt anywhere and be happy anywhere, I'll choose to be happy somewhere special, and hurt in a place where it will mean something."

Gregor's hands coasted from her shoulders to rest on her hips, and he could appreciate the form of her sides as they lapsed into silence. Their heads were filled with the implications. They had made a decision that would irrevocably change their futures.

Gregor knew in the back of his head that despite the secluded and very personal nature of this conversation, the decision would go on to involve many more people. Not only would the people of Regalia have to accept him, the council would probably have to formally support him, unless Luxa felt like using her monarchic power to its fullest.

And maybe more importantly than all of the citizens and councilors would be the royal family. Of course, everyone they knew would support them. But Gregor knew there would have to be children involved, and not random ones. Their own. His and Luxa's. He didn't know how prepared he was to be a father. But strangely, he found himself embracing that concept the easiest.

Luxa still felt guilt within herself. The truth was out in the open between them, and their love was now mutually acknowledged. But things felt incomplete. Just like the contraption they had used to descend, Luxa felt like something was missing for the return journey. It felt unbalanced. She started to step back, self-conscious.

"I choose you," Gregor said suddenly, gently pressing his hands into her. "I choose you, and Regalia, and the Underland. I'm all the way on this."

"All the way?" She asked. "Even to the ends of the Earth?"

"I'll be with you, even then."

Their statuesque hold on each other broke. Luxa kissed him, pressing herself against him. Gregor returned in force, leaning back into her. His fingers swept over her plaited hair and he felt across her back, still covered in the shirt she had borrowed.

Their bodies were eager to make up for lost time. In a wild moment of passion, Luxa nibbled on Gregor's lower lip, taking thrill at his surprise and the vigor with which he responded, his tongue pushing against hers, his entire self consumed with desire-

The elevator, which had slowly been making its way downwards the entire time, finally reached the bottom. And from within, a flashlight shone out on them.

"Ew," the new arrival said. "You left me alone in the middle of nowhere just so you could mack on your girl?"

Luxa backed away, shielding her eyes from the light and straightening her shirt. Boots quickly redirected the beam, not intending to harm her.

"The elevator wasn't here," Gregor said. "Didn't you promise to stay with the truck?"

Boots scoffed as she pulled the doors open.

"That promise only lasted till sunset. I gave you a few minutes grace, too."

Gregor sighed. She was really toeing the line, but he couldn't find himself angry with her.

Luxa wasn't embarrassed. Again, while the people of Regalia were somewhat reserved in public, there was little wrong with showing affection in private. She joined Boots with little hesitation, and Gregor followed.

The machinery spun up again, as the wheels spun and the metal box was drawn upwards.

"So you were listening last night, Boots?" Gregor asked, pushing past the awkward atmosphere.

"Hey, I _really_ don't like people leaving me out of things," she said. "And if I'm living in a closet, I'm sure going to make use of it."

"You don't have to be let in on every single thing," Gregor protested. "Leave the worrying to other people."

"I'm never worried," the sister said. "And didn't you go down to the Underland when you were two years younger than me?"

Gregor had forgotten Boots had been filled in by Luxa.

"Yeah, pretty much every cat is out of the bag now," Boots gloated, while Luxa looked mildly confused at her choice.

"Do they hate cats in the Overland?" Luxa asked. "I ask because you have many sayings about them. Skinning them, putting them in bags, having them killed by curiosity..."

"I don't think most people hate them. Cats are just really expressive," Gregor said, glad to change the subject. "Did Boots show you Felix?"

* * *

"Oh, that is a cat?"

Felix was indeed a cat, and Gregor knew that he was probably the meanest tomcat in the county. He was missing part of an ear and his tail had a kink in it from some kind of incident years ago. It had taken more than a year after they moved before Felix would even approach his saucer of milk if Gregor was present.

Which made it all the more surprising when this grizzled old fighter immediately warmed up to Luxa, sniffing at her fingers and brushing against her legs like a house-cat half his age.

"You spoke as if he was a monster," Luxa said, scratching his chin. "This 'Felix' is gentler than a lamb!"

"Yeah, I guess he got those scars from intense cuddling." Gregor's sarcasm was easy enough to read.

Luxa pouted jokingly but kept petting Felix, who was now laying stretched out on the porch.

Gregor's uncle appeared in the entryway of the tool shed, beckoning to him. Leaving Luxa to pamper Felix, he entered the sheet-metal enclosure.

"So you're leaving again? This time for good?"

"I don't know about 'for good', but I'll definitely spend most of my time away from here."

"Hmm." His uncle grunted. "So, you think you're ready for marriage? It's a hell of a commitment, take it from me."

"Yeah," Gregor said, trying not to sound too cocky. "I'm going to give it my best shot."

"You're going to have to give it more than one shot," his uncle said. "Things won't always be so clean and clear like they are now."

Gregor gave a solid nod. When his uncle was in an advice-giving mood, he wasn't looking for conversation.

"Do they believe in God down there?"

"They don't worship," Gregor said, knowing that it wasn't a direct answer.

"Well, what the hell, it's not like your maw and paw were ever the religious type," he said. "What do they believe in down there, then? Man's got to have a code."

"They're into Stoics, straight out of ancient Greece and Rome."

"No shit, Stoics?" his uncle said. "Stoics are about the only kind of philosophy I can get behind."

Gregor did have to agree that what he had read all sounded right up the older man's alley.

"It's all about taking responsibility- personal responsibility. And you just build up wisdom that way- think ahead, maintain discipline- absolute dedication."

The man had a far-away look in his eyes, imagining something that no one else would see.

"Makes sense for them, if your stories are true. For a person down there, there's things in their power and also things beyond their power- so to build resilient fighters and citizens, you have to teach them to focus on just what's in their power."

Gregor figured this weird burst of engagement was part of his uncle's interest in military history. And his guess was confirmed.

"You wonder how the Spartans did it? No soft beds, overwhelming odds, the enemy at the gates. Sounds like that Underland. When you're outnumbered, the only way to make the odds even is if each person continues fighting to their fullest. The moment the lines break and retreat begins, numbers will win every time."

He wondered where his uncle was going with all this.

"Look, son, I'm sure you've seen what I'm talking about yourself. You've actually been in the thick of it. All I got was a few weeks in Grenada. It doesn't really measure up, in my eyes."

His uncle's wide brown eyes stopped looking around the room, finally settling on Gregor.

"Aw God, look at me, I can't even stay on topic. I'm just trying to say- I just want you to know that I'm wishing the best for you. Luxa's people don't sound like bad folk. And she's got a good head on her shoulders anyway."

He offered a hug and Gregor came in close, sniffing woodsmoke and tobacco and motor oil and realizing that he probably wouldn't smell anything like it for quite a while.

When he got back to the porch, Luxa had her mouth on her pointer finger.

"What happened?" Gregor asked.

She smiled, in spite of herself.

"The very minute you were out of eyesight, the little terror clawed at me."

Gregor looked out into the deep black of night, looking for any sign of Felix.

"If you're looking for an apology from him, you're gonna have to wait."

"I trade a terror for a jester." She reached a hand to Gregor and he helped her up.

They spent a while next to each other under the bare yellow bulb over the door, feeling the beginning of the warmer spring winds as they blew in.

Then the screen door slammed as Boots came out.

"Wow, I think I'm getting used to you two making goo goo eyes the moment no one's looking," she remarked. "Is that a bad thing?"

Gregor scowled but the smile eventually won out.

"Hey, I've sworn to be with her the rest of my life," Gregor said. "Goo goo eyes are part of the deal."

"Are they?" Luxa asked, her eyes opened comically wide. "I may have to rethink this."

"Haw, haw, haw." Boots rolled her eyes. "Dinner's ready."

* * *

 **Author's Note: Next act returns to the Underland.**


	9. Chapter 9 : At a Cost

They were at the clinic in the city again, for the first time since leaving New York.

Dr. Parry was back in London, so it was just Amadia and Frank waiting for them. While Luxa underwent her final checkup, Gregor was debriefed on his work at the mine.

The white-haired woman who gave no name sat at the same desk in a room that appeared just as empty as before. It was starting to dawn on Gregor that the floor he was on might not actually be anybody's office, just a meeting space.

"Frank passed on a little of what you told him." Barely wrinkled hands brushed dust from the desk. "It really was bats, then?"

"Just one, the rest of them were further away. But the bypass has been installed."

"We're only trimming out the signals related to the bats, so the seismograph should still be doing its original job."

 _Well, at least my act of federal sabotage won't be interfering with earthquake sensors._

"And you're going back down there for good now?" Her hands were steepled, her eyes even. But he could read the implication.

"I go where she goes now."

"But still under our agreement?"

"I'll report in once a month here, and I'll still be on-call for additional tasking." Gregor said this casually, but he knew his relationship to the organization would be important to Regalia.

"Ah, _additional tasking_ ," she smiled. "Frank will be your contact person for almost all of that. But I might be present at your reports, from time to time."

Frank was still rubbing his head, as if something was on his mind still.

"Do you think it might be a conflict of interest?" Gregor asked. "I mean, me becoming royalty through marriage."

The other two glanced at each other and then shook their heads.

"The way we see it, the humans down there just want a good life under the surface of the Earth," Frank said. "I mean, it's weird as hell, but there's weirder and worse things out there than the Underland."

"I'll support it," said the other. "It's a sweeter flavor of diplomacy than we usually get around here."

"Speaking of alternate flavors of diplomacy, I've been accumulating some gear that could come in handy," Frank said. "Let me show you."

"See you in a month, Gregor," the woman said. "Tell your queen I wish her luck."

Frank took him out of the lonely room and into the elevator, going down a few floors. In fact, they were only one or two stories up from the ground floor.

"How are you on your field stripping?" Frank asked as he entered a code and scanned his thumb at an unmarked door in a hallway full of them.

"I'm not rusty," Gregor said. "Why?"

He immediately understood why. Frank had brought him to some kind of workshop and storage room. It looked like a police armory, except for the occasional ornate sword or what looked like rayguns.

Frank had a workbench already prepared, with a series of items that he quickly went over.

"Threaded barrel for your pistol, plus a suppressor, courtesy of the boss lady. She might not look like it, but she's been in some serious situations. I think she's ex-FBI, but you didn't hear it from me."

Gregor looked over the barrel and suppressor. He recognized the manufacturer, and admitted that the 'boss lady' did know her stuff. While the .45 caliber rounds his pistol shot were slow enough to benefit from the muffling, he didn't know think it would be all that stealthier. They had sensitive ears in the Underland.

"She may have been from the Bureau _,_ but I was a Company man, myself," Frank said. "But the spook business gets old. Things are clearer cut here."

"Clearer cut?"

"I don't know if its the aliens or the magic or what, but its hard to be morally conflicted here. The good guys tend to keep to themselves. The bad guys make messes in other people's worlds."

Gregor knew what he meant. Maybe it was because he lived in the Overland that the Underland could be easier to understand in his mind. It was good sometimes and it was bad a lot of the time, but it did have an entirely different feeling than the place he was born.

"It's interesting that you'd go for a 1911, and double-stack, at that," Frank said, changing the subject. "You chose a big gun and made it even wider."

"Interesting?" Gregor asked absent-mindedly, focused on screwing the blocky suppressor onto the new barrel.

"Yeah, it's interesting. I've known a lot of Marines. You don't really fit the profile."

Gregor looked downrange with the gun. The suppressor had been designed not to rise up and block the front sight. It was a good pick.

"What do you mean I don't fit the profile?" Gregor set his work down. "Like almost every enlisted, I didn't go to college. I was born in Brooklyn back when it wasn't so hot a place. It's not like it's necessary, but I also got into a bit of trouble in school, too. I'm pretty much spot-on."

Frank raised his hands in surrender.

"My bad, I was just thinking personality wise-"

"Hey, Frank," Gregor interrupted. "The only time you've seen me outside of New York was at the end, on a hospital bed. So just chill with the analyzing, all right?"

Frank zipped his lips with a finger and threw away the key. He looked just as easygoing as before, but Gregor knew he had lashed out a little too hard.

They kept quiet for a long time after that, while Gregor checked over his equipment and took on some additions from Frank.

There was another barrel and suppressor for the M3A1 Mr. Cormaci had brought back from war so many years ago. After fiddling with it for a bit, Gregor decided he could add the suppressor when he got in the Underland, since it lengthened the sub-machinegun quite a bit already. He would still have to walk through Central Park with all his gear.

In the less-lethal line of things, there was a tube of glow-in-the-dark paint, a first-aid kit, and a vial of some colorless liquid.

Gregor held it up for Frank.

"Oh, that?" Frank said, identifying it at a glance. "It's a cocktail of insect pheromones. I really have no idea what it can do. But if they're still fighting bugs down there, it might be worth its weight in gold."

The vial went back into its sleeve in the backpack. Something about it felt wrong. It would have to be used only in the most dire of circumstances.

"If that's all done, let's get you back to the queen," Frank said. "If you two want to be back home by sunset, we're going to have to move quick."

Down in the clinic, Luxa had long since concluded with her screening. She didn't appear concerned with the extra time, giving a brief hug to Amadia before taking Gregor's hand as they left the building and got into the waiting car.

"Amadia said that my eyes are fully restored," Luxa said. "I found it difficult to believe."

"You were able to get everything cleared out pretty soon after you got hit. That must have been important."

She winced as he said the words, her head turning away to look out of the window at the city.

"The wound is gone, but memory prevails," Luxa said.

Gregor's thumb instinctively touched a deep scar in his shoulder. With some effort, he forced himself not to pick at the scar. Instead, he reached for Luxa's hand again.

She took it gladly, but when she looked towards him there was regret in her eyes.

"When we are again near Regalia, we cannot be seen so closely together. I will announce our intentions at the soonest possible juncture, but until the tribunal has found you worthy enough to be a King..."

"I get it," Gregor said. "Hands-off."

"I am not glad things must be so, but I do not mean to have you just as some paramour or court favorite. You said to me you wished to share my life."

"As true then as it is now."

Luxa kissed his cheek. Gregor understood that it was the only gesture she could allow herself. He wouldn't ask for more, no matter how much he wanted it.

Central Park wasn't snowbound, but it wasn't exactly covered in green yet either. The lack of good scenery and the wildly oscillating temperatures created a situation where few people were at the park, and those who were weren't looking around too closely.

The concrete slab was just as difficult to move, but this time there was a grating underneath it. Gregor called Frank.

"Don't worry, it's locked from the inside. We're just trying to keep nosy people from coming in, but you can exit at any time."

"How does somebody get in if they need to, then?" Gregor asked.

"Remotely-engaged lock from our Ops Center. Or, if they're not affiliated with us, they could just cut a hole in it."

The grate swung open on hinges, creating a hole big enough for one person at a time. Luxa went first, then Gregor. He inspected the hinges and the lock mechanism.

"He wasn't boasting," he said eventually, and they continued down the staircase.

The tunnel at the bottom seemed untouched from the month or so ago that they were there.

The pieces of armor were still there, along with the stranger's sword that Gregor had used. To his surprise, none of it looked banged up, blood-covered, or otherwise effected by the intense fighting that preceded their escape. Somebody must have returned to maintain it.

Luxa was also looking at the armor.

"Miravet granted you an entire hauberk of mail?" She sounded stunned.

"Not just this, she also gave me those leg-pieces and that front-and-back thing."

"We call those cuirasses, and greaves for your legs," Luxa said, "And it is rare indeed that Miravet would give so many items of protection to one person."

"Yeah, I was thinking it was strange, too," Gregor agreed. "I mean, the last time I suited up down here they stuck me in black leather with metal inserts. It flew off as soon as I got hit."

"Well, the situation was different then," Luxa explained. "Now that metals are more easily obtained, better armor is available. But Miravet has always been reserved with the amount of protection any one soldier gets."

"Maybe she knew I was going to be on that one mission."

"Perhaps," Luxa said. "Or Nerissa could have informed her of your need. Or perhaps she meant to show you favor."

The fact that all three of these ideas had come to Luxa's mind astounded Gregor. He had been stuck thinking about the material effects of the decision.

But before he could voice his appreciation, wingbeats were heard coming down the tunnel fast, so fast that Gregor couldn't isolate the echoes from the original before the bat was over them.

It didn't even circle once before diving to the ground. As she came close, Gregor could tell from the shape of her head that it was Aurora.

"Aurora!" Luxa cried with joy. "I see you."

"Do you? I am amazed," Aurora purred, bumping her head against Luxa and folding her wing around her in what looked like a hug.

"Hey Aurora," Gregor said, standing by the side. Aurora gestured with her other wingtip for him to come in and he got a hug from the golden-furred bat.

"We have never been away for this long," Aurora spoke. "But I sense that you have not been alone."

"Thankfully, no," Luxa said, looking guilty that Aurora had to stay behind. "I will have much to tell you of the Overland, but I would first hope to hear of the Underland."

Aurora nodded warmly. She would not begrudge Luxa her time in the sunlight.

"After their defeat at the palace and the failure of their assassination attempt, the twisters have not been heard nor seen, not even in the Jungle."

"And the buzzers? Or the cutters?"

"The cutters have not been witnessed in force. Soldiers from Troy still catch the occasional stragglers in side tunnels, but they terrorize no more. The buzzers likewise have not initiated battle."

"Then Regalia is safe?" Luxa asked. "Have they begun rebuilding?"

Aurora looked around shiftily.

"A greater enemy has appeared. Or rather, resurfaced. The Waterway is far lower now, and enemies have emerged at the Fount."

"Then it is the clawers." Luxa came to the conclusion immediately.

"Are those the lobsters?" Gregor asked. "I heard Ripred mention something about teaming up with them to take the Fount."

"A failed plot, but do not mistake its lack of success for a lack of threat. The clawers are more than lobsters- they include what you may call crayfish and crabs. It is a pyramidal society."

"And the biggest are on top."

"Yes," Luxa said. "The lobsters live for very long amounts of time. Their current king has reigned since Sandwich's time."

"Wow," was all Gregor could say. You heard about trees living that long, but never an animal. More than 400 years of life probably made him dangerous- and wise.

"The clawers emerged from the Waterway and besieged the Fount," Aurora said. "The king has claimed he will not stop until either the Fount is his property or until the person responsible for the flooding of the cutter nests faces judgment at his hands."

They both looked to Gregor.

"We must mount up, then," Luxa said. "There are multiple matters of urgency at hand here. Multiple expeditions, a rescue mission-"

"Let me go," Gregor said.

Luxa stopped in midsentence.

"Go? Go where?"

"To the Fount."

Aurora cut in.

"Overlander, the Clawers mean to execute you. Their king has very peculiar notions of justice, and he acts with an unhealthy resolve."

"She speaks true," Luxa said. "In the past, he has killed many of those sent to him in good faith, under any number of perceived slights. He has seen to the maiming of dozens of sailors that violated his code of law. I fear you would not survive."

Gregor nodded to show he heard, but his words were defiant.

"I'm not saying I'll go there to die. But I can't let any more get killed because I wouldn't show up."

" _Think,_ Gregor," Luxa whispered fiercely. " _Think_ of what you are to become. Perhaps there are other survivors from the demolition."

"I would not be able to stand before anyone if I hid from this."

Luxa sighed, then gasped Gregor by his shoulders.

"You are true in this," she admitted. "I would not have chosen differently for myself."

Aurora readied herself for takeoff as Luxa climbed onto her back.

"I fly now to Regalia, but we will send another to take you to the Fount," Aurora announced.

"This will be your first time visiting," Luxa said wistfully "If only the situation allowed me to travel alongside you. It is a good place."

"Maybe once this is over..." Gregor started, but the sentence trailed off. He knew she just wanted to share the city with him the way he had shared New York with her. But he also knew they would be something else down here after this, something far past the carelessness of youth.

Luxa smiled sadly, and Aurora took off.

Gregor waved to them as they left. It was quiet where he was, much quieter than he could imagine. Staving off the wave of emotion, he reached for his armor. If the Clawer's king wanted to see him, he certainly wouldn't be going in lightly.


	10. Chapter 10: Haste and Waste

The flier who arrived to take Gregor to the Fount was laconic, even for one of the bats. The flight was boring as well, an unlit trip over the unending Waterway. It gave him time to reflect on what he was about to do.

The king of the Clawers wanted to punish whoever caused the demolition. It hadn't been Gregor's plan, but he also had not simply been following orders. He agreed to lead the team in and even suggested on suppressing the scent of their explosives and fliers. As far as he knew, none of the others had survived, either. Out of all the people who had been directly involved, he was the only one left standing.

He also felt like he'd be the most likely to survive an encounter with the Clawer King, as long as the odds weren't skewed. He hadn't even seen a lobster yet, though, so he wasn't thinking of making any bets on the outcome.

The Fount came unexpectedly into view, although it was still a long distance away. He could see a faint glow ahead of them. Gregor wondered why he hadn't been able to see the light earlier, but then he noticed that the glow of the city was oddly shaped. It didn't radiate from all sides equally. It was strongest at the edges.

Before Gregor could ask the bat, the light shifted again and the cause of the glow was made clear. There was a gigantic column of stone that emerged from within the Waterway. It was comparable in size to a mountain, and the city was on the other side of it, near its base. The lights became stronger at certain angles, so the entire settlement hadn't been noticeable until just then.

Rounding the giant stone column, the whole settlement was revealed. True to its name, the Fount was located next to a massive spring of water. What was unique about the spring was that it emerged at the top of a steep slope. A large reservoir at the top was ringed with buildings, but the bulk of the city was built below the reservoir, a combination of buildings cut into the limestone and granite structures built on top of flattened terraces.

The settlement was clearly set up to be well defended, as each terrace had its own line of walls, and Gregor could see blockades in the street. The residents had been preparing for war.

A flier popped out of the darkness and rolled itself to be on the same level as Gregor's taciturn bat.

"York is about to take to the field. We must make haste to the walls."

The bats chattered to each other, then entered a dive. Up close, Gregor could see a light in every window. More than a few people were looking out towards the bottom of the settlement, a wide sandy beach that looked unnatural, as if the water level usually rose past it.

Usually, it would be easy to tell the original water level. The buildings would stop at the beach. But here, rocky outcroppings were found among the water. Or at least Gregor thought they were rocks. When one of them moved, the illusion shattered. What he had mistaken for landscape were the lobsters.

They were as big as a truck, but the sizes ranged so that some of them were like delivery vans and others were slightly larger than a pickup. They all looked like trouble. Their black armor shone in the pale glow from the lamps. Their claws were large and bulky.

As the fliers dove towards the wall, a force of soldiers was already advancing towards the lobsters. At the head of the departing soldiers, Gregor could sound-sense a tall man with a greatsword held at the ready. It must have been York.

The bat touched down and flew off without a word, but Gregor did not go unnoticed in the ranks along the wall. He was getting used to the reaction by now: first surprise, then elation, then hope. But a person was forcing their way through the crowded defenders on the wall.

The man was unrecognizable, even without the finned helmet. Gregor had never seen the person before. As the man approached and stood expectantly before him, Gregor noticed the man was at least two heads taller than him.

"Do you not recognize me?"

"Sorry, but no," Gregor said. "Look, I just got here. Just assume I don't know anyone or anything."

There was silence around him, but the clamor of battle was starting on the beach, the sound of metal thudding into thick chitin, blades skidding off when the angles weren't right. Already, the screams of wounded were rising.

"I appreciate your brevity," the tall man said. "I am called Kent, son of York and his second in command. What is most important here is that Nephrophion, King of the Clawers, recognizes you before any more soldiers die."

Gregor nodded in agreement.

Kent started barking orders, and the battlements quickly turned away from the Overlander and back towards their duties. A signal lamp was being operated to attempt communication with the army, but the battle was so intense that York could not be reached.

Gregor could see bits of lobster flying in the air every now and then, and would have to guess that they came from York's powerful swings. The lobsters were having an impact too, though. More than one soldier was seized around the mid-section, held into the air, and then squeezed until they burst, blood running down the monstrous claw that ended them.

He would have leaped off the wall right then and rushed into the battle, but he hadn't the slightest clue how to get down. There wasn't even a flier nearby to ride in with.

"It goes poorly," Kent muttered to an officer. "Even my father will see that soon. Without fliers, we are nothing but bloodballs in front of the Nephroidean vanguard."

An order was given, and rope ladders were tossed over the side of the wall. Almost as soon as the tough fibrous rope touched the sand, the fighting group began to retreat, first slowly, while the rear guard set up, and then rapidly, as the rear guard became smaller and smaller.

Gregor didn't need to wait any longer to know it was time to prepare his weapons. The pistol was already holstered at his side but the tried-and-true submachinegun still had to be unpacked. He worked at it quickly, extending the shoulder stock and quickly replacing the entire barrel by unscrewing its assemblage and replacing it with the suppressed version. He wouldn't want to shock anyone with fully-fledged gunfire during an already chaotic retreat.

The gun was ready- he had one magazine loaded, and five other tucked in pouches specially crafted by order of Miravet. He took a spot next to Kent at the battlements, trying not to draw any more attention.

Kent looked over at Gregor.

"I have heard of your weapons. They might be invaluable during their counter attack. Might you follow my directions to areas in our defenses that may need it?"

"Sure," Gregor agreed. The young commander could probably analyze this kind of battle better than him.

The retreating forces had been ascending the ladders the entire time. Out of the hundreds that had been out, only the rear guard remained. York cut an imposing figure, backed by five other fighters with two-handed swords. They used the length of their swords to keep the lobsters at bay, while severing whatever appendage entered their range. Their technique had lasted long enough to evacuate, but Gregor could see that it was difficult to maintain. The fighters were exhausted.

Suddenly, a lobster got lucky with a claw, seizing a sword and twisting it out of the way while its other claw went for the wielder.

Gregor heard Kent gasp, but York had reacted first. He severed the claw holding the defender, just as it had begun squeezing. Then the point of his sword went through the head of the lobster.

The biggest foe yet simultaneously jolted to the front of the pack, taking advantage of the disturbance. This one's body had a grayish tint, and he looked like he could hold three men in his claw and end them without effort. This could only be the 'king' clawer that Gregor had heard about.

The clawer snagged York by the arm as he shoved the soldier up the ladder. Without a single wasted second, the claw snapped shut, and York's left arm disappeared in a puff of red and a spray of bone.

Even before the claws had closed, boulders were rolled over the walls. These smooth stones had been carved to roll, and roll they did. Even the king had to move out of the way of one, long enough for York to shove the soldier in front of him towards the wall before they started climbing. York was doing it onehanded, the mangled stump at his shoulder still letting out jets of blood.

He climbed over the ramparts and was swarmed with medics, but he threw them all off as soon as a tourniquet was tied around his shoulder.

"Leave me be!" he yelled, pressing a bundle of spidersilk to the wound. "I will tell you when I need treatment."

The medics backed off, just at little bit. York looked around him, and spotted Gregor.

"Ah, the Warrior! If only you had arrived an hour earlier!"

The white-bearded governor looked as bulky and muscular as ever, but his face was pale with shock and he gestured weakly with his head to the missing arm.

"I jest, I jest. But no one else needs to be hurt," he said sternly, before turning to Kent, who was supporting the soldier who had been saved by York's quick action.

"Now, Kent, I expect to survive this. But suffice it to say that governing will not be my primary goal for the next few hours. You remain in command. And Hero-"

The soldier next to Kent hiccuped, and Gregor realized this was no random fighter. It was Kent's twin sister.

"No need for weeping, Hero," York laughed. "It wasn't even my fighting arm!"

The soldiers all gave a nervous chuckle, and then York dropped to his knees.

"Now, I think, may be a good time for treatment," he said quietly. The medics swarmed over him again and he was borne off of the walls by no fewer than six men.

Gregor felt guilt twist a knot in his gut. Although there had been any number of ways he could have been faster to reach the Fount, he couldn't help but go over every possibility. A man he had fought with had been gravely wounded, and only because Gregor hadn't shown up soon enough.

Hero pulled off her helm, wiping her eyes dry. She looked like Howard, but her face was rounder and her hair was darker in color. Her body was a close copy of Kent's, however. Wide, blocky shoulders fit their armor well and they rested thick forearms on the pommel of their swords, in mirror of each other.

Hero coughed up a handful of blood, and another batch of medics seized her and led her off the wall. She had probably been squeezed just enough to cause internal bleeding. Gregor didn't even want to imagine what the bruise would look like.

He didn't have a chance, because a whistle was blown and the disarrayed lobsters had assembled their lines on the beach.

"They don't look like they're attacking," Gregor said, looking closely at them.

"The nephroideans rarely lead the charge," Kent informed him. "They showed my father a rare respect."

 _Some kind of respect,_ Gregor wanted to say, but he knew better.

"No, they will send the astacoids to climb our walls first."

"The astacoids?" Gregor could tell that the nephroideans were lobsters...

"I know not the name, but the astacoids are somewhat the size of cutters, but also have claws and live underwater. The cancroids are circular, not lengthy."

 _So the astacoids were crayfish and the cancroids were crabs._ Gregor wasn't sure if the information was as important as knowing where to hit them.

"Think of them as you might a larger, better protected ant. I only recently fought the cutters, and I find them far easier to dispatch than any of the clawers."

Kent was speaking casually, as if a thousand of the giant crayfish weren't emerging out of the ranks of the lobsters.

The defenders waited until the crayfish were almost at the top of the wall, then began rolling the giant stones. There was no room to dodge for the climbers or for the ones massed below. They were crumpled easily, but their bodies were just as easily crawled over by their replacements.

A mass of them had formed at the center of the wall, clearly going for Kent. There weren't any stone balls ready to roll, so Kent made the gesture to allow his men to fight.

And so they rushed to swing swords at the climbers, but Gregor was already ahead of them- and he wasn't swinging a sword.

Even if their exoskeletons were tougher than ants, the crayfish were no more resistant to bullets. Gregor fired careful bursts, targeting the nearest ones before aiming at the further ones. It only took one shot to knock most of them off, and he couldn't see the bodies move after they hit the floor.

It had been a while since his last fight, so Gregor hadn't noticed the rager sensation until he stopped to reload, switching an empty mag for a loaded one on the front of his cuirass. His fingers were eager, and some shameful part of him remembered them as they had touched Luxa in the mines. The shock at the internal affiliation was enough to allow Kent to step in.

"We are all right here, Overlander. But the leftmost section of the wall is almost overwhelmed!"

Kent was right. While Gregor had been plugging away crayfish in the center, the swarm had changed to target the edges. Gregor rushed along the wall to the left, dodging the injured as they hobbled away from the battlements, covered in gashes.

When Gregor arrived, the battle was too close to use anything but a sword. It would be enough to change the flow of the fighting, though. He had experience with enemies at that height before, and he found himself making moves that wasted no energy. He could both stab and slice, sometimes combining them into a flick that cut his enemies in two. The bodies piled up surprisingly fast around him, crunching as he chased whatever came into range.

"Warrior!" a woman shouted, waving a hand in front of his eyes. "You are needed back at the center!"

Gregor sprinted off, arriving in time to help Kent clear the area so that another stone could be dumped over the wall.

After the ball had rolled its way through to the ocean, the attack ended. Without much haste, the defenders started to throw the crayfish back over to the beach side.

"Whoa," Gregor said as he saw clawer corpses tumble by the dozen. "Are you trying to provoke them?"

Kent looked quizzical.

"No, this is just their way. Eating kin is important for them."

Gregor saw lobsters bully their way in front of the living crawfish who had began to nibble on the dead.

"The neproideans eat the cancroids and the astacoids, but not a one of them would dare partake in a fallen lobster."

Kent sheathed his sword, and his shoulders sank a little lower.

"They have their ways, and they maintain themselves with them, as unusual as it is. If you were to approach them, I believe you would not be harmed immediately."

Gregor checked Kent's expression, but it was simply blank.

"Are you suggesting that I turn myself in?"

"Yes," Kent said flatly. "I mean you no disrespect, but their king has only asked for you. My father skirmished only to gauge their strength."

 _A costly test._

"Well, I came here to meet the Clawer King," Gregor said. "Might as well do that."

Kent made another hand signal, and a man in front of a lamp started to pull a cover in a pattern. He kept repeating it for a while, silent except for the squeak of the metal shutter and the mumbling of tired soldiers as they intuited the situation with Gregor.

Some of them looked on in disbelief and some shook their heads disapprovingly. Some were just angry, angry at Gregor, it seemed. After a while of the signaling, the lobster king came to the fore again, his size still unbelievable, and the splatter of York's blood on his claw still unmistakable.

" **I call to you, Overlander** ," a voice called to him, scratchy like one of those old phonographs, but still plenty loud. It reminded him of the giant snake he and Luxa had fought in the palace.

"I call to you," the voice repeated. It definitely came from Nephrophion. "Gregor, killer of the Killers."

As a kid, being called 'killer' had messed with Gregor's head. But he had long since accepted what he had done and what he was capable of.

"You speak to me, Nephrophion," Gregor shouted, trying to keep his voice low and authoritative. "Why cause this much fighting?"

There was a hair-rising sound of clicking, a sound that Gregor remembered a spinner making as it laughed. This lobster apparently laughed in the same way.

"No one person causes fighting, Overlander. Each one chooses to fight or to flee."

"You could have stayed down in the water," Gregor said. "From what I hear, you were all right down there."

"I would have chosen to remain there, but the destructive tendencies of the Killers would not allow it. Know you the effects of your actions, Killer? You have ended a generation of innocent lives."

"There was nothing innocent about the cutters!" Gregor shouted. "They chose their way. Their queen chose evil."

The lobster below hit the ground with both claws, hard enough to feel through the wall. He was enraged, even though his voice didn't portray it.

"I care not about the cutters," the voice said, louder. "I speak of an entire generation of our children, suffocating and dying on the sand because of you!"

 _What?_

Gregor looked at Kent to maybe explain what was up. But the commander would only look down. It was shame. Gregor had extended the name 'killer' in regards to the humans of the Underland.

"Your destruction drained the spawning pools in which we raise our young," the king said. "It takes twenty complete years before our kind is prepared to birth. And from there, there are ten more years until the young are hatched."

Gregor was stunned. He had long since made excuses for drowning the cutters. But flooding their nests had drained the nests of the clawers. No one had told him that would happen.

"I had no clue that would happen!" Gregor tried to defend himself, but his voice was drowned out by the clawers pounding the sand.

"Forgive my subjects if they do not consider your intent to exterminate some other group a fair excuse for harming ours."

Gregor couldn't believe it. Just a while ago he had no clue the lobsters even existed. Now, they were clamoring for his punishment. Would they want a limb? No, they probably wanted his life.

"I definitely agree that what happened to your eggs was bad," Gregor said. "But I didn't even know about the Clawers until very recently. If you need help recovering, I'll try my hardest to get you the help you need."

The chattering, false laugh mocked him again from the base of the wall.

"Overlander, the ones aggrieved here are beyond help now. Now it is you who must make amends for the dead."

"I'm not going to die for this, if that's our first option here."

The tense defenders seemed to slacken a bit after that remark. They valued the blunt turn in conversation. York would probably have liked it, too.

"I do not ask you to surrender your life immediately, Overlander. But you must face a trial."

Gregor's heart sank. Court for the Nephroideans was probably more like a tug of war. Proven guilty or proven innocent, it didn't seem like a situation he would be able to survive.

"A trial by combat," Neprhophion explained. "None have faced me and gone unscathed. If I am killed, then Fate has proven you singular, beyond even my judgement. If you are killed, then the punishment shall be wrought."

One thought instantly came to mind. He could ignore the crazed, perhaps senile lobster king. Gregor could let the siege go on, or maybe he could just go home. But he could still remember what happened to York vividly. The lobster-king had been chopping off arms for decades, causing pain and suffering without punishment. If Gregor left Neprophion as the biggest power at the Fount, he could only imagine the atrocities the lobster could dream up.

"Trial by combat? Sure," Gregor said, his decision made. "On a few conditions. Keep all of your people off the beach while its going on- this has to be one-on-one."

"Fair conditions," Neprophion said. "But allow me to add some of of my own. You may only bring to our combat the items specified in the Covenant. If these terms are satisfactory, we shall meet in one day, upon this beach. Otherwise, my armies will attack."

Nephropion backed away from the wall, disappearing into the ranks of lobsters and crayfish. His beady black eyes reflected the light even after the rest of his body was indistinguishable. Gregor still kept his eyes forward, not ready to turn away from the enemy and back to the city.

Kent finally got his attention by tapping him on the shoulder.

"Know you what the clawer meant by the 'Covenant'?"

"It sounds like you have some kind of agreement with them."

Kent nodded. "The agreement was meant to broker peace and allow the Fount to exist."

"If it was a peace agreement, it's doing a pretty bad job."

Kent chuckled unhappily.

"It stopped the first war with the clawers, and established agreements on how we would settle disputes in the future."

"Sieges are part of that?" Gregor asked.

"Only when other efforts have failed. And to Nephrophion's credit, he did not begin the siege until it was clear that we would not give the clawers what they wanted."

"Couldn't you just have told them I wasn't around?"

Kent paused before he spoke, taking a drink from a waterskin and checking around himself, as if looking for eavesdroppers.

"You are not the only survivor from the raid."

Kent stepped closer.

"One of them is recovering in Regalia right now, and their flier is already free."

Kent left the battlements, gesturing for Gregor to follow. As they descended the stairs, he noticed that they were being flanked by a orderly formation of guards.

"You do not seem resentful that the survivor was not sent in your stead."

"I wouldn't ask anyone to own up for something that I did," Gregor said. "Especially if they've taken this long to recover from a battle. What happened?"

"There is not much more I know, other than the fact that the soldier was recovered soon after the Queen left the Underland. I do think that this survivor's wounds must be severe if she is still being treated."

The natural slope of the stone column had been well-tamed by the people of the Fount. Switchback ramps worked their way between flat planes of stone, like a road connecting each terrace. But there were stairways that were far more direct than the main road- they went straight up to the top of the settlement, and Gregor could see this path teeming with people, while the longer ramps between each tier were congested with carts- some of them loaded with what looked like bodies. A fist of nausea hit him- they were lying on their backs, nearly covered in fabric.

"Do not worry, those are only patients being taken from the aid station to the hospital," Kent said.

"The dead go the opposite way."


	11. Chapter 11: Within Without

The aid station was located right next to a gate, the first of many that separated each terrace from the one below it. There was a group of laborers working to move the stone blocks that were blocking the gate, but Kent was leading him inside ofthe gate. A side passageway inside revealed that the second row of walls was hollow.

"Where are we headed?" Gregor asked. He wanted some context on what he was seeing.

"Our forward command post. I must see to the defenses before we visit the hospital."

Kent reviewed some logistical information on food and water stocks in the settlement- naturally both were high. They even had a farm for fish set up in ponds near the reservoir. It was clear that the Fount would be able to hold out against a siege for quite a long time.

After seeing to a reconnaissance patrol of fliers and drawing up the orders to reinforce the defenders for a 24-hour watch, the commander was done with his work. And with his duties relieved, Gregor really could see Kent's youth. He was too young to be at war, but the teen did a good job at hiding it.

They took the long stairs two at a time- the crowd made way for Kent and everyone who ran with him. A few minutes into the journey, Gregor started feeling the results of his lack of exercise when the burn started to rise in his legs and his breath became hard and forceful.

Just as he was thinking about asking for a break, Kent slowed his pace as they reached the right level. The buildings here seemed much too small to contain hospitals. They had plenty of windows, mostly covered by thick drapes, not glass-covered like in Regalia.

More proof that the neighborhood was residential announced itself as they progressed. Children poked their heads under curtains to take a peek at all of the soldiers passing by. There was probably some kind of curfew going on, because he wasn't seeing idle people anywhere he looked. After one kid had stared at him wide eyed for an entire block, Gregor waved to him. The only response he got was a flutter of fabric as the youth went back into hiding.

"Do not worry," Kent said reassuringly. "They have not seen an Overlander in their life, only the puppet-shows and the stories. But if you are resolved to duel a Clawer, you might have another legend for yourself the next time you visit."

Kent talked calmly, and it was clear he was level-headed in most situations. But he also was observant enough to deal with emotional situations.

"Thanks," Gregor said. "I'm not going back to the Overland, though. The legend's going to be my own."

Kent's head nearly swiveled like an owl's to look back at Gregor. Once he was content it wasn't a joke, he coughed, feigning stoicism.

"Then that is welcome news indeed. You certainly stand to surpass your reputation if you become a resident of the Underland."

The hospital was located nearest the ramp, and not the stairway. It was not chiseled out of rock, but had been built on a foundation. The stone looked like granite or something similar, speckled rocks with a wavy pattern running through it. He guessed this was probably where Luxa had gotten treated after the cutter attack.

It was all built on one floor, too. The heaviest wounded were located near the front and the recovery rooms were stationed at the back. An attendant met them at the entrance and led the way to the Governor, threading them through groups of medical personnel rushing to treat various battle casualties. York was sitting upright in bed as Kent came in, and a heavily bandaged Hero was standing nearby, no longer wearing her armor but standing just as straight. Her face was stern, her arms tensed- she was standing guard, even though she was probably in a lot of pain.

York's face was pale but he still tried his hardest to smile when his son entered the room.

"Kent, how fares the defense?"

"The wall held. Two score are injured, but none are dead."

York's mustache bristled as he thought about the numbers. He twitched in surprise twice, then used his right arm to stroke his beard instead. He was far from used to the current state of his body.

"If that is the case, Nephrophion did not fully intend to take the Fount in his counter-attack."

"What did he intend, then?" Hero asked.

"Maybe to punish us for our skirmish," Kent guessed.

"Aye, and maybe to expend an excess of astacoids on an attack. I am sure the falling water level has decreased how many subjects he can feed."

Kent clapped Gregor on the shoulder.

"Were it not for the Overlander, their diversion could have cost us much."

York nodded.

"I did not hear the crack of his weapons," the Governor said. "But I am told he made the difference many times. The astacoids are lethal when they overwhelm an opponent."

"Please, don't worry about it," Gregor said. "It's just the right thing to do."

The three family members looked at each other, then nodded. As one, they began reciting a rhyming verse.

 _Gregor, Overlander, we swear it now_

 _Your lot and our lot are one, we vow_

 _Seen in dark and seen in bright,_

 _For those of my blood, yours and ours shall be as the same light._

There were a few staff in the room, but they made a quick disappearance, staying silent until they reached the hall, after which they started chattering. Whatever the family said, it had been momentous.

The words reminded Gregor of the declaration of war Luxa had made when she found the hundreds of dead nibblers, massacred under the order of the Bane. But despite being just as faithful, the words definitely seemed less heavy. No one was going to war over that.

"Now, what is this talk about my family reciting the Rite of Linkage without me?"

Susannah, wife of York and a doctor at the hospital, was at the door. She held her two hands out to Gregor, in the Underlander form of a handshake.

"Consider my vow to be the same, Gregor."

Susannah was kind, but her face had definitely started to wrinkle. It was probably not easy managing the entire hospital. Also, York and Susannah must have gotten together later in their lives than Gregor's parents had. Or maybe his parents had less worrying in their lives. The fact that Gregor was making the comparison made him realize that he had gained a lot of affection for the family here.

"Wait, what is the Rite of Linkage?" Gregor asked.

"Consider it a deliberate statement of our trust in you," Susannah said. "I heard of your assistance at the walls. And there are rumors that you will duel the clawer king, on behalf of the Fount. Both very honorable services."

Gregor shuffled his feet. He didn't think it was all that special, especially given the scarcity of alternatives. But he was glad he had people watching out for him down here.

Susannah was fussing over York, even though the wound had long since been sewn up. Everyone seemed to be taking the whole 'lost an entire arm' thing well. Even Gregor wasn't feeling the deep pit in his stomach that he usually got when he saw a friend hurt.

The Governor certainly did a lot for that. He seemed only slightly bothered by the missing arm. His family seemed to be taking his lead on the matter as well. Gregor found a seat while they discussed more details surrounding the state of the Underland.

According to reports, the area around Regalia was as safe as it had ever been, with no sign of any of the Poison coalition. Whatever cutters existed were being pushed back to the jungle by gnawers as they reclaimed their territory (and then some). Some of the territory the rats held now originally belonged to the crawlers, but they were too dispersed to resist. They hadn't even shown up to meetings yet. Gregor hoped Temp and the rest of them were still out there, though.

The spinners had survived as they always had, by feigning neutrality and eventually switching support to those who would win. They had been attacked by cutters, but no one else dared enter their web-filled caves, and they had sealed themselves in until just recently.

The twisters were absolutely unheard from. Not even scouts had spotted them.

"If they mean to leave for the Uncharted Lands, good riddance," York said. "I almost did not know whether to send young Chim away to Regalia or keep her here."

"I highly doubt they would be able to assail the Palace again," Hero said. "They relied heavily on collaboration with the buzzers, and there are many improvements to the aerial defenses in place."

Mentioning the buzzers and the twisters brought Gregor's mind back to the blood-splattered halls of the palace. When he closed his eyes, he could still recall the panic and desperation within him as he fought through dozens of enemies, surrounded by the fallen defenders.

As he remembered it, it felt like a waking nightmare. He had been convinced that Luxa was dead. Everywhere he had looked, blood had been spilled. Humans, nibblers, gnawers, even the hulking remains of the diggers. Gregor had killed and killed and killed and killed. At the end, he was sure he was dead. Maybe he was, maybe-

"Overlander?" a voice interrupted the vicious chain of memories.

"You must be tired," Susannah said. "Please, let Hero show you to the Manor."

Gregor knew that he actually was exhausted. According to his watch, it was almost 10 at night in New York. If he was going to fight, he would need his rest.

York grasped Gregor's hand strongly before saying farewell. All things considered, he was full of a surprising amount of life.

On the way out of the hospital, there were nods of deference, the tugging of forelocks, and other signs of respect. But this wasn't Regalia. None of them had seen him before, he didn't think.

Once he and Hero reached the staircase, he spoke up.

"What's the deal with everyone recognizing me here? Even in Regalia, it feels like half of the people don't really care if I'm around."

Hero answered without breaking stride, still climbing two stairs at a time on powerful legs.

"They all think you are set to perish for their sakes," Hero said bluntly, her voice rough. "Add to that your new connection to the house of the Governor."

Gregor stepped carefully, trying to keep pace with the woman, who was maybe a little taller than him. But his mind also worked to stay in step.

"Everyone thinks I'm going to die? Are my odds really that low?"

"History tells us that no human has won direct combat with Nephrophion. Indeed, fighting with any nephroidean is no simple task."

"I've fought plenty of things before," Gregor said. "But I guess people are taking that into account, too."

"At least two ragers have fought Nephrophion in four centuries of recorded struggle. One lost her light. The other managed to mark the clawer king and was thus allowed to escape with only a leg taken from him."

Gregor had a flash-vision of risking everything on a single thrust, only for his sword to get stuck. Then he felt his leg shorn away.

 _I'll have to keep my head if I want to keep the rest of my body._

He had been silent for enough time that Hero felt the need to speak.

"But you are the Hero for which I was named, the Warrior unmatched in legend."

Gregor knew that was just her attempt to make him feel better. But after seeing the stories from inside, he knew that the legends were truly nothing more than exaggerations. He had come close to death many, many times. Without the help of people like Ripred and the sacrifice of many soldiers, Gregor would have died without anything under his belt. He may have been called the 'warrior', but he had never been the best fighter.

"You doubt my words," Hero observed.

"Yeah, I guess I do," Gregor said. "I've been called a hero plenty of times, but there's never been a single time I felt like one."

"I do not understand." Hero kept climbing.

"Maybe it's because too many people died along the way. Good people."

Gregor imagined Saqiq in his head. He was the only one from his unit to survive. The others had made the sacrifices, protecting him and the civilians they were guarding. All Gregor had done was kill.

"You misunderstand my words," Hero clarified. "In our lands, deeming someone a hero is a judgment made externally. Your feelings on the matter are not what define it."

Gregor felt cowed for a moment. He had been self-centered. It really didn't matter if he felt like a hero. The title had always belonged to someone else.

"I do not say this with a mean spirit," Hero began. "But I was born a club, and my brother was born a dagger. It is my opinion that you will not die tomorrow. Likely, you will survive, but maimed as my father has been."

 _Wow, she really is blunt._ Gregor thought.

"I say this based on my observations of your fighting and of military records of your battles in the Firelands and against the Bane. After observing Nephrophion's speed and size, I made the judgment."

 _Wow, at least she has a process behind guessing that I'm going to lose big tomorrow._

They reached the very top of the Fount. Pausing for a rest, Gregor turned and saw the entirety of the settlement below him, torchlight seeming to gleam from every window. Then, as he watched, the lights in the windows started to go out. Soon, there was only the white glow of gaslights on the streets.

If he strained his ears, he thought he could hear the Waterway lap against the distant beach below. But in reality, the sound came from the gigantic reservoir at the utmost height of the city. At its center, a spray of water continually bubbled up. The overflow from the reservoir was fed downwards into the city.

A variety of homes were lined up on the border of the reservoir, but a tall rectangular block of stone jutted upwards. The windows could be seen from a hint of light playing around their edges.

"This is the Manor," Hero said as they approached, passing through a small encampment of guards. They were alert, but did not seem tense. They bowed to Gregor as he passed. He was feeling like quite the important corpse right about now...

There was food served soon after they entered the massive house. It was all seafood, or seaweed, but Gregor was far from picky. He was also quite hungry. He shucked a few oysters before the main course was served, a baked fish, its head still intact.

He ate voraciously, keeping an eye out for the bones. After a lot of work, the meal was done. Or so he thought.

" _Ah-ha,"_ A voice softly needled. "You will not touch the head? I always believed it was the most sensitive part."

The newest arrival leaned against a stone arch, pushing one of her hips outward, as if to let her too-tight gown show off more of her body.

"Stellovet, you bawd!" Hero shouted in protest, getting angrily to her feet.

Stellovet laughed, a bubbly, throaty laugh that made Gregor feel very suddenly like he was under threat of attack.

"Halt your attack, dear sister," Stellovet pleaded jokingly. "All is fair among kin, whether jesting or jousting."

Hero grumbled as her older sister advanced to the table, offering two hands to Gregor.

"Ah, Overlander, how long has it been since I have seen you?"

Gregor had a feeling Stellovet knew exactly how long it had been. She was putting out vibes that he had seen a few times before in his life.

"It's been a while," Gregor said, trying simultaneously to be nice and disinterested.

"Oh, what is this cold response?" Stellovet asked, looking mournfully at him with thickly shadowed eyes. "I am merely glad to meet a friend from my childhood. My, how we have grown up."

"You are one to talk of cold responses," Hero interjected. "Father lays in the hospital, and you remain perched at home?"

Gregor saw Stellovet's face briefly drop its act- a look of venom passed under the surface.

"Oh, you must not have heard, little sister," Stellovet said in a mocking voice. "While you were busy being bandaged for your wounds, I rushed to father's side. He sent me away soon after, of course. He trusts _my_ decisions."

Gregor winced. Stellovet seemed just as rotten as ever- and she would say just about anything to hurt people. Blaming York's condition on Hero was a low move. But Hero didn't go down without a fight.

"More likely it was because he could not stand another injury, that of his pained heart each time he sees what a monster he has made," Hero said, standing angrily.

"You damned trull!" Stellovet suddenly blurted in anger, darting towards Hero with a hand outstretched to slap. Hero was winding up a fist of her own.

Gregor managed to stand up and intercept both arms at their wrists.

"C'mon guys, is this really the time?" Gregor asked.

Hero was the first to stand easy, but Stellovet raged in his grip.

She was flashing threats from her eyes, pulling at her arm.

"You... damned..."

She moved her head to his hand suddenly and Gregor braced for a bite. But instead Stellovet nibbled wetly at the skin at his wrist.

That was probably the most disturbing choice she could have made, and Gregor released his hold so fast that he had to admit it was the most effective one.

"Jeez," he whispered to himself, checking the spot to make sure he wasn't bleeding.

"Our family recited the Rite of Linkage earlier, Stellovet," Hero sighed. "You truly have overstepped your bounds."

Stellovet humphed, tossing her hair and leaving the room on unhurried feet. She was acting like she hadn't just tried to bite a guest of honor and slap her younger sister.

 _She's a complete mess._

Hero led Gregor to the guest chambers on the third, and highest floor. It had all of the amenities of his room back in Regalia, and was maybe a little larger.

"You did not have to intervene," Hero told him before she left. "I have fought her and won, many times before. Elder sister or not, she cannot help herself but strike out at times."

"I wasn't worried for either of you," Gregor said. "I guess I didn't want to see sisters fight."

His own sisters rarely skirmished, because Boots usually found a way to get what she wanted and Liz was actually quite flexible when it came to her family. But he just did not like the idea, on principle.

His room for the night was engraved, but not like Regalia. The etched patterns in the walls were of wheat, and trees and other plants. Maybe it was special to the guest room. Maybe it was something they only did at the Fount, far away from the farms of Regalia.

Blindly guessing the origins of engravings was stupid, Gregor knew. But as he went through the long process of freeing himself from his armor and giving his equipment a quick wipe-down before bed, the other questions that came to mind were too much. York was lying in the hospital without an arm, and the monster that had done it would be waiting for Gregor in a matter of hours. It was a bad time to be alone.

He had long felt isolated, he figured. The exceptions were rare. He could count them on one hand- as a very young child he had felt whole. Then for a short period after his father had been rescued. Then, there had been a certain commiseration that had developed into a camaraderie in the military. And then, for the past few weeks with Luxa, he had felt like he had all the pieces again, as terrible as the events leading up to it had been.

If he looked at it cynically, like he ended up looking at most things, deciding that Luxa was everything he needed to be happy was premature. It had been a rash decision to swear himself to her and to Regalia. It was probably a sign of something unhealthy. Maybe not for an Underlander, but he had been born and raised in the Overland, no matter how the Underland changed him. His parents hadn't protested at the idea of marriage, but Gregor suspected it was only because they didn't know just how to evaluate him. He was too different from the kid they remembered.

He had twice been changed by war, once Under, once Over. He had killed and seen friends killed and seen death and destruction. It was natural that many wouldn't understand him. The same way he couldn't understand himself sometimes. Like when he thought of Luxa. There was no logical reason for him to feel love for her after ten years apart. They were supposed to be entirely different people. But really, they hadn't changed all that much. Life had made them grow up too fast, and they hadn't changed all that much after that.

He tossed over on his side. He thought it was twisted that when he thought of being hurt, he also immediately thought of being in love. But both had happened most acutely in the Underland. Maybe his body had never forgotten the origins of both the feelings, even though everything else seemed to beg him to let go.

If he tried, he could blame all the weirdness on the moment a boy went crazy and jumped off a cliff to save his family. Maybe all of his normality had died there with King Gorger and Henry and all the other gnawers.

He heard someone move at the doorway. The figure was feminine to the senses, or one might say _exceedingly_ feminine, as if the figure was trying their hardest to fulfill the exaggerated idea. It was Stellovet.

She lit the torch by the door, saying nothing, slowly approaching his bed with measured steps.

"What are you doing? I'm trying to sleep."

The steps faltered but continued, and Gregor could hear the rustle of her dress as her legs rubbed over each other and she approached.

Gregor sat up suddenly.

"Stellovet? What the hell," he said sleepily.

"It is I, Overlander," Stellovet purred. "I thought you might wish for my company."

"You thought wrong," Gregor grunted. He was running out of patience with her.

Stellovet stooped low by his bedside, her chemise sagging in a premeditated display. Gregor averted his eyes, not trying to give the lady any ideas.

"Oh brave warrior," she whispered breathily. "You deserve what pleasures I may give you."

Gregor feigned a yawn.

"Deserving isn't the question here. Shoo."

Stellovet placed her hands at her hips and then slowly moved them up her body, lingering on what she thought were probably the choicest bits.

"Seriously, you tried to bite me not too long ago. I wouldn't be interested even if your timing didn't suck."

Stellovet giggled.

"Oh, what things you say. But I am linked to you by oath now. When a parent recites the vow for their family, it only means one thing..."

Gregor shook his head. He didn't know, and didn't care. He had traded an internal crisis for a very external one- like how to get desperate childhood acquaintances like this out of his room.

"It means we are to be wed, no doubt," Stellovet said. "Are you so tied to tradition that you do not wish to sample your partner beforehand?"

"What?" Gregor asked in genuine confusion. "We are definitely not getting married. And if you had plans, call them off."

"Ooh, Gregor, you fool," Solovet said, kneeling on the bed and pursing her lips. "That is what the Rite of Linkage is for. I bathed with the Queen not more than a year past and I can attest that between the two of us, I have more to offer you physically."

"That's not really the issue here...," Gregor tried to reason.

"How sad that you and the Queen were not meant to be. But she is royalty, and you are..." Stellovet looked him up and down. "A delectable morsel, but still an outsider."

Gregor pushed aside the implications that Stellovet had brought up.

"I'm promised to Luxa," he said. "And your entire family knew this when they recited the linkage."

Stellovet's lips puckered suddenly.

"So I'm going out on a limb here and guessing there's probably other reasons outside of marriage for them to do a Linkage," Gregor said.

The look on Stellovet's face was like broken glass. She probably had run through the possibilities in her head and now the illusion was gone for her too. She got up, knowing she was beat. She even seemed to draw her chemise tight around herself, unconsciously.

"Well, they say you are to die tomorrow," she said, hopefully. "Perhaps just once-"

"No!" Gregor groaned in irritation. "Seriously, get the hell out of here."

Surprisingly subdued compared to her earlier outrageous acts, she left quietly. She even snuffed the flame as she left.

And in the dark, Gregor was left again in the standoff between himself, Love, and Death.


	12. Chapter 12: Their Fight for Life

"At your service once again, sir."

Gregor had woken up early, but before he could even get out of bed, a familiar face had walked through the draped entrance.

"Doros? What are you doing here?" Gregor asked. The young man had been assigned to him as his official page, sourced from the cadets of the Regalian military. But the mainland was a long way to travel, and he wasn't sure if he needed an assistant.

"Amid the celebration upon the Queen's return, I managed to discover your whereabouts," Doros said. "It was only natural that I return to your service on the first willing flier I could find."

He stood eagerly, hands clasped in front of him as his eyes looked alertly around the room.

"I have already retrieved clothing." Doros pressed a folded tunic and pants. As Gregor took them, he appreciated the softness and the pearlescent glimmer of the dark-grey fabric.

"Forgive me if they are not to your style," Doros apologized. "I do not believe we have much choice, in light of the day's duty."

Gregor frowned as he recalled the trial by combat. It was kind of funny how nonchalant everyone seemed to be about it, himself included.

At the hospital, Susannah had fallen asleep in a chair next to York's bed. The two parents both looked out of it. York's injury continued to be a serious issue.

Gregor found Kent had fallen asleep on a cushioned chair outside his father's room. Gregor tapped him lightly on the shoulder and the young man jumped.

"Sorry."

"No matter. I was due to wake." Kent rubbed his eyes and stretched. The _pop_ that followed as his bones realigned confirmed that he had been in that chair for a long time.

"So what do I need for today?" Gregor asked. "What are the rules for the fight?"

As Kent got to his feet, he quickly found his rhythm.

"You are to be armed as a _retiarus,"_ He said, somehow recalling it from memory. "Know you the term? It is from ancient Overland tradition, yet found its way into our bargain with the Clawers."

Gregor shook his head. It sounded Roman, but Latin was probably dead last on his list of languages.

"When there is a disagreement between clawers and humans, either side may demand a trial by combat, or otherwise a payment in foodstuffs." Kent beckoned as he started walking down the hallway. He would lead Gregor and Doros somewhere better suited for the discussion.

"The rules for combat are thus: only one combatant versus the other. The human must be armed with what seems like the equipment of a fisher: a weighted net, a metal harpoon, and a dagger. For armor, you may choose to protect one arm with any kind of metal. Nothing more."

Maybe armor wasn't any use against a giant lobster. But the choice of weapons was really weird.

"People _agreed_ to this deal?" Gregor had trouble believing the rough-and-tumble Regalians of old would agree to obviously disadvantageous odds like that.

They were outside the hospital now, but were remaining on the same level, seeming to go in the direction of the downwards ramp.

"The odds are fair, if your opponent is any being other than Nephrophion." Kent was talking from experience. "I have seen man and woman alike use the harpoon to great effect against the lobsters."

"So this whole 'trial by combat' thing happens a lot?"

"Not so frequently now," Kent admitted. "But I have seen near a score of these bouts from the walls."

And then he revealed the location they were walking to. A small ramp descended off of the city street and to a fabric-covered sandpit that must have been 50 meters long and about as wide.

It was large, but well-hidden underneath the buildings over it- the enclosure was tall enough to have rafters, and Gregor could see a team of people working up in them, tugging and pulling on ropes.

His eyes tracked the ropes and he saw exactly what they were attached to. Thick metal rings were embedded all across a giant translucent lobster. An aide tugged at one of the ropes and Gregor saw an arm move in response. Were they using a shed lobster skin?

"This is where we train those who must fight the clawers. I have never sparred with the large puppet, but I suggest you watch yourself. The instructor has a knack for wearing students out."

"I'll do my best not to be totally exhausted."

"Best of luck, Gregor. May the currents follow your course."

Kent left to command the army while Gregor was doing the opposite- getting ordered around as if he was a basic recruit by the instructor.

Gregor's instructor was a gruff man that was missing a whole lot of his body. His injuries hadn't touched his voice at all though, because he spent a solid minute pacing the catwalks and yelling at the people who had gathered.

"This is no game!" he shouted. "Volunteering to fight a Trial for someone is not a noble pursuit, either."

As he spoke, he gestured wildly and seemed to be on the border of absolute rage.

"There is no honor or glory in dying during a trial by combat. Know you the thing they would write on your memorial plaque? They cannot say you died in war. They cannot say you died of disease. You died by choosing to fight an insect of enormous size simply to prove yourself in a time of peace!"

As Gregor looked at the trainees who had attended with him, he could see that they were younger than him, if only by three or four years. They must not have witnessed the war if they were at the Fount. They had never seen the effects of war with their own eyes.

Training started with him and a few other trainees taking laps around the sandpit, trying to keep their speed up as the jog drug on.

After 20 minutes surrounded by wobbly-footed kids and the quagmire of deep sand, one of the others broke first when he lost his balance and fell over.

"I beg, what is the goal in all of this?" the youth cried. His face was red with frustration.

"The goal? The goal is simple. Lobsters are fast, yet they expend too much energy in the chase. To prevail, you must get your enemy exhausted."

The trainer had apparently volunteered many times to take the place of the sick or those who could not fight a clawer. After years of watching and fighting, he had gained experience at a faster rate than he lost parts of his body (and he was missing plenty of it at this point).

The instructor demonstrated the basics as the other students attempted to do battle with the puppet. Some were better than others, but few lasted longer than half a minute. Some tried to pierce the claws with harpoons, but they seemed to be deflected by the smooth curve of the armor.

After a few failed strikes, the students were bowled over easily, some of them larger than Gregor and built 'like brick shithouses', to borrow a term Gregor had found out was the only way to describe the walking walls of muscle you could probably find in any military in the universe. Despite their ubiquity, it was always an important thing to note where the big guys failed.

Any challenge that couldn't be beaten with force was indeed a serious one. Gregor was last in line to face against the lobster. He was given a metal pole, dull, not like the harpoon. It's weight made it unwieldy.

The claws swung at him and he backed up instinctively, batting the nearest one away with the harpoon. And then the second claw grabbed him, knocking him to the ground and then closing around him..

There was no breath in his lungs for a few seconds as he struggled to get up. The rager instinct hadn't activated. Gregor wasn't sure that it would have saved him, either. The claws moved quick, and when they were open it was almost twice as hard to dodge them.

"Up!" the trainer yelled. "Again, up!"

The model moved backwards, with the sound of ropes passing through pulleys and the creaking of its joints.

As Gregor got to his feet he felt his nerves finally firing off, his senses deepening and his focus becoming razor-sharp. He shifted his grip on the pole further back, holding it like a bat instead of a spear. He worked the heels of his feet until they were dug into the sand, and waited for the claws to come to him.

As before, they came at the same time, a pincer attack that was supposed to strike him in unison. He could have dodged, but Gregor stood his ground.

The claws, operated by two separate groups of people, didn't come in at the same time. Gregor swung at the first one, delivering a strike that shattered the fragile claw. The loud _rip_ almost hid the sound of the opposite claw to his left- almost.

He ducked as it swept over him, then brought the pole down on the back of the attacking appendage, knocking it loose. It left a trail in the sand as the few ropes holding it up attempted to drag it back. Gregor pulled back for another swing-

"Hold!" the trainer shouted. "Hold there, Overlander."

The man slid down one of the detatched ropes without a single sign of struggle. Gregor knew from experience there was a lot of friction involved, but he didn't understand why the man was unaffected until he approached. His artificial arm was a well-sculpted work of ceramic, with a fishbone hook attached to one end.

"Know you the goal of this exercise?" the man asked quietly. "The clawer is meant to be dodged."

Gregor apologized repeatedly as the aides attempted to repair the frame. He hadn't even asked for clarification before the exercise.

"I must note that you have the correct notions, Overlander," the trainer said. "Yet it is not so simple to strike with sufficient force when the nephroidean is true."

Gregor kept the pole, but was led through a series of standing exercises that emphasized certain grips and how to change between stances. It reminded him of the flowing grace of the _tai chi_ he had seen one time, with the exception being the heavy harpoon.

After going through the motions a few times, the trainer allowed for a brief break.

"How come you're the only one I've seen use this thing in fights?" Gregor asked.

"It is only at peak utility versus a nephroidean. With more than one opponent, the task becomes nigh impossible. A sword is better suited for any setting outside the duel."

The man smiled ruefully. Gregor could see why it might get him down. The trainer ran a gym meant only for the inexperienced crazies who wanted to duel ruthless lobsters more than twice their size. His fighting style was only relevant to a small pool of people that only got smaller as the duels thinned out each generation of duelists.

"Maybe I could get Nephrophion to renegotiate the charter," Gregor said. "What do you think?"

The trainer shook his head in astonishment.

"A brave idea, but I would not stake my life on it," he said. "Peace exists here only as Nephrophion allows it, and things are peaceful enough."

The silence built as the man thought some more, enough time and thought to begin hoping. The expression on his face cut flat again.

"Idle thought and speculation will not increase your odds. Let us begin the forms again, from the top."

The rod spun in his hands and Gregor's feet found stability in the sand. Training continued.

* * *

Doros ended up carrying the armor, but Gregor insisted on carrying the harpoon on the walk down to the walls. He balanced it along his arm, the wicked hook swinging with each step.

An honor guard had appeared as soon as Gregor had bid farewell to the instructor and left the sandpit. Their shields were decorated with a series of spirals, and Gregor had trouble tearing his eyes away from the hypnotic patterns. He had to get in the zone quickly, with no room for extra thoughts.

Kent was waiting for him by the ramparts, arms crossed. He had probably been scanning the beach for hours at that point. He nodded deeply to him, almost bordering on a bow.

Gregor started to get ready wordlessly. He shed the tunic, feeling a slight chill from the humid air. Doros strapped the few protective pieces available onto his arm for him, tightening straps before tugging to make sure that it was secure.

A man dragged a folded net over to Gregor with a sound like tinkling bells as the metal weights bounced on the stones. He didn't have a lot of practice with the net, and the instructor seemed pretty dismissive of it. As long as it made a difference, Gregor wouldn't mind taking it along. That was probably why he had a dagger sheathed at his hip, too. There was a very minor chance it would do anything to help, but that was good enough.

Once he kicked off his boots, he was ready to step up into full view of the beach below.

"Nephrophion!" Gregor shouted, hearing the echo return back to himself. "I answer the call."

Shapes moved in the dark, and then the king of the Clawers emerged. He stood still, claws raised in the air. Gregor needed no further instruction on how to continue. He found the rope ladder and used his armored hand to grasp it as he slid down. Once on the beach, he began a cautious approach to the clawer king, each step closer reminding Gregor just how large the tyrant was.

He stood opposite Neprophion, just outside of his range. As he lowered his harpoon to point at the lobster and his feet found purchase in the sand, Gregor realized his rager powers had long since been active. The action began before his mind could acknowledge it.

The claws moved simultaneously, faster and trickier than the training model. One jutted out at Gregor's head but was easily knocked away when he stabbed the harpoon downwards into the claw. However, the action had required that he charge in at the claw and jump, and his harpoon was stuck. The other claw chopped at him, attempting to knock him over. Gregor had to abandon the harpoon for the moment and rush backwards to the net. It scared him how his body seemed to have acted on autopilot just then, attacking before he could even acknowledge it.

Neprophion pursued him, snapping at his back with the untouched claw while his legs scuttled across the sand. There were too many narrow misses, and Gregor's attention was so occupied by dodging that he barely managed to even grab the net and unfurl it with a shake.

Gregor took the first opportunity for a throw. catching the claw and Nephrophion's head under the same net. The tangle was nearly impossible to deal with by cutting, so the lobster just began pulling at it. Gregor took the brief moment of freedom to plant his foot on the damaged claw and yank the harpoon out from the lobster, taking a glob of white flesh with it. The injury gave Nephrophion the impetus to rip the net entirely, the weighted strands shooting into the air and raining like hailstones.

Gregor took deep breaths, trying to calm himself. If he went berserk and tried to stab this enemy again, he wouldn't have the net for backup. He had to rely on his training now.

When the next attack came he batted it away, knocking it off course before reversing his grip on the harpoon to deliver an overhead strike, cracking the armored claw. The rebound from the attack nearly broke his fingers, and the wave of vibration felt like it had torn open every blood vessel in his arms. It didn't slow him down.

He took advantage of the opening, hopping onto the crusher that he had just damaged and stabbing the harpoon downwards at the point it met the arm. It was caught inside of the joint but Gregor couldn't let go. He heaved his entire body against his weapon, feeling the layers of armor start to shatter. He didn't stop pushing until he felt his tip plunge through the joint and into the sand.

His bloodlust cost him- Nephrophion stabbed at him with his free appendage, the attack moving at the speed of reflex- and Gregor's reaction was only good enough to move his armor in the way. He didn't even remember the impact. He came to on the sand, lying flat. Warmth was flowing down one side of his head and his shoulder was aching like never before.

Remembering where he was, he got to his feet, trying to regain his bearings. The giant lobster was meters away from him, more interested in its damaged arm. Nephrophion tried to move it multiple times, but the metal rod embedded in his arm was doing its work. The king moved his other claw to the place where the arm met its torso, and clipped the damaged limb off. Gregor almost couldn't believe his eyes. It was like watching a gardener snip off a branch, with no concern at all for himself.

For his part, Gregor checked the wound on his head- a nasty gash that went deep. The wound would hurt the moment it was allowed to, so he locked it away, as deep as he could. He drew the dagger- a narrow triangle of sharpened metal that could even go through his own armor, if used correctly. There were no doubts in his head, no questions or hopes or worries. He knew what he had to do.

Circling Nephrophion from his now-weakened side, Gregor waited for an opening. The lobster tried to keep up with him, but its burly body did not let it rotate in time. Nephrophion got increasingly slower at rotating, and Gregor took advantage of it in the right moment, coming in on the lobster's blind side. He launched himself as high as he could from the sand and drove the dagger deep into the armor running down the clawer's back.

It wasn't enough to seriously damage him, but it served as a point of leverage so that Gregor could get fully on top of the lobster. Clawers could not truly buck in the way that animals with spines could- the only threat was the antennae that the king tried to lash him with. Gregor grasped one with his chainmail glove, hacking it off at the halfway point. He still had a grasp on what remained.

He pressed the point of the dagger into the rear of the lobster's head, but didn't push.

"Stop!" Gregor shouted. "I'm pretty sure your brain is somewhere in front of my dagger."

Nephrophion complied, frozen. Gregor could hear a forced stillness all around him- every living thing had their eyes on the struggle.

"I yield," the voice said. "My life is yours to take."

The killer instinct within Gregor wanted to take the lobster up on its offer. He could easily imagine using his knee to hammer the dagger through the armor plating, ending the tyrant. But he would not do that.

"If it is mine to take, then it is mine to give," Gregor said, letting the antenna go free.

"No," Nephrophion pleaded, in a voice absolutely free of emotion. "Do not do this, I beg."

"Nope," said Gregor. "I'm giving you your life back, in exchange for one thing- renegotiating the Covenant."

The clawers were listening, and there was a sudden clattering as the various groups began communicating to each other.

"This is not the kindness you think it to be," Nephrophion said.

"No, I know exactly how cruel this will be to you," Gregor said. "But I'm finding it hard to care after four hundred years of you being an asshole."

The laugh from Nephrophion sounded like a record scratching.

"Very well," the lobster said. "You have my word, for as long as I have life. But that will not be for very long, damaged as I am."

Gregor didn't know what to make of the words, until he saw that he and the lobster king were being surrounded by crabs and lobsters- both clearly out to take the king's power. As he tried to count them, he was surprised when a glob of white flesh and agate chitin landed in front of him. The harpoon stuck out of it.

"If you intend to renegotiate, you will have to keep your new thrall alive," the king intoned.

Gregor did not reply, just yanked his weapon out of the disembodied piece of claw. The pain of his gash disappeared again- his body prepared to fight again. This time he knew there would be killing.

* * *

 _He was a beast, trapped at the very bottom of a deep, dark pit. There was no light to be found- he felt the vibrations of life as he tracked them to the source and ended them. He killed everything he could find. Everything he found wanted to kill him, after all. The bodies of the dead piled up, and he went on tearing through them, adding to the total._

 _Soon there were nothing but corpses in the pit with him. He couldn't stop fighting- the bodies were shredded into smaller and smaller bits. Too late, he realized that they were so small that they were like grains of sand. The dead were indistinguishable and in their number, he began to sink below the surface of them. It was like quicksand. He struggled but only sank deeper in. Light appeared at the top, far above him, but it was so distant. As his bloodied claws struggled, a vine descended from the light, deep green and full of life. He grabbed hold, and felt himself pulled free-_

Gregor woke with a yell, his arms swinging wildly, slamming into stone. He could feel himself spinning through t he air.

"He wakes!" he heard a voice call from somewhere over him.

"Cor, if he will not also wake every sleeping soul from here to Troy," another person exclaimed, less loudly.

"Heave!"

Gregor was bound with rope, being pulled up the wall that protected the Fount. He felt terrible, even excusing the gut-clenching sensation of being dragged high into the air. His body felt sick, like when he stopped running without a cool-down. Every muscle loose, every organ quivering with nausea.

He had a headache, too. Not to mention a variety of other scrapes and gashes that stung in the air. Without the threat of battle powering his blood, he felt vulnerable clothed in just his pants. Someone had tied him up in order to get him over the walls of the Fount, but now that he was conscious, the binds were just adding to his discomfort.

Kent was waiting with a knife, cutting Gregor free before Doros helped him up. There was a forced stillness around him, now that he was on the wall. Some side-eyed him, while others seemed to be inspecting him intensely. Something down on the beach had changed their opinion of the stranger.

 _What had happened?_

Gregor turned his head wearily, and saw the once clear beach dotted with junk. From where he was, he couldn't make out any more detail than specks of black in between larger lumps.

"I thought myself beyond surprise," Kent said from behind him. "Yet I find myself totally astonished."

He touched Gregor lightly on the shoulder.

"Come, we must seek treatment for you. Toxins are commonly found among the Clawers."

"What..." Gregor began to ask, but got so dizzy that he had to lean on the rampart.

He was pressed into a stretcher, and Kent accompanied him on the now-familiar path up through the city to the hospital.

"Rest, Gregor," Kent said. "You have more than fulfilled any obligation to our city."

Against his will, he found his eyelids become heavier, and soon he slipped into a daze, torchlight dancing through the tiny slit he left open. As the stretcher was carefully maneuvered up the grand staircase, Gregor saw people looking on in concern, or perhaps awe. He could feel something terrible building in him, a sense of surreality climbing up his spine.

He was poisoned, he realized. It might have just been the effects of early delirium, but it kind of cracked him up. He might die of poison after fighting a lobster, when he had made it through hundreds of venomous snakes not that long ago. The sleeping drugs kicked in before he had the chance to be scared. Not for himself, but for the future he had started to believe in.

* * *

"... And thus we decided that it would be in the best interests of the Queen to revive the Honor Guard."

The Minister of Defense looked expectantly at Luxa. She sat up a bit straighter on the throne, caught off-guard. She had been thinking of other things.

"What- What is the opinion of the rest of the council?" she asked, stalling for time.

The ministers looked at each other from across the council room, silently deciding who would speak for them.

"We agree absolutely," the Lodging Minister eventually said, standing ahead of the rest. "There exists an opportunity here for a permanent improvement of the palace's security."

It was the sort of thing the Lodging Minister would say. His position was temporary, brought into service on the council only when Regalia needed to rebuild or expand. Generally, that meant it was a role meant for the peacetime that followed a war or disaster.

"The council believes so strongly in the subject that it is making a formal request, in addition to one other matter."

Luxa may have been sitting up before, but the Lodging Minister's mention of a formal request gave her a jolt of uneasiness. It was unusually forceful in this era of the Relations Politick.

"And what is this other matter important enough to demand such rigor?" Luxa asked, although she had a very strong impression on what it could be.

The Lodging Minister cleared his throat before answering, but he didn't seem especially worried about propriety. Unlike the other ministers, he didn't have to worry about what the Queen thought of him in the long term. The council would vacate his position when the recovery was over. It was actually common for Lodging Ministers to be used as tools to pressure the reigning sovereign.

"The council hereby formally requests that the Queen take steps towards continuing the line of her house, or otherwise selects another line to assume her responsibilities."

Luxa fixed the man with a cold stare. She needed to communicate that she was not at ease with being given orders as the adult ruler of her people. Especially when the council had never used so direct a method after she had taken the throne in her own right.

"The request is made freely," the Minister eventually added. "But the council has already prepared a list of suitors, if the Queen is willing."

They were attempting to force her hand here, but Luxa did not feel truly pressured. Instead, it was as if an opportunity had opened up for her. It only needed 'flexible thought', as Vikus may have put it.

"Very well," Luxa said. "Bring me the list."

And there was indeed a list, no doubt ordered by suitability. The ten candidates were identified by name, age, and occupation. They did not know they were being considered, but they would all probably have agreed to it. After all, it was for the Good Queen Luxa, who was perhaps not the longest-reigning queen, but certainly one of the few in recent memory who had as many triumphs.

But looking at the list of unmarried men judged to be worthy candidates, she saw one flaw. Not a single one of the entries read 'Gregor, Overlander, Age 23'.

Luxa set the list aside. Vikus may have championed 'flexible thought' but Solovet swore by 'direct action'. The time had come to use both.

"I appreciate the work that has been done to prepare the list," Luxa said evenly, with an air of grace. "I am ready to choose."

"So soon?" the Lodging Minister asked. "Wish you more information on your selection?"

"I doubt the council could produce any additional information for mine," Luxa said. Instantly half of the council looked confused while the other half understood, with complete shock.

"I choose the Overlander."


	13. Chapter 13: Recovery into Routine

It felt like days passed with him stuck on the bed, unable to move much of his body. An overwhelming heat had started to boil in him, maybe infections from the wounds all over him. His joints seemed locked up, aching whether or not he tried to free them. The doctors and nurses treated his wounds with ointment and spooned syrups and broths into his mouth, but trapped inside of his ailing body, Gregor couldn't see any progress happening. In fact, he couldn't see anything at all- his head was wrapped almost entirely in bandages, and his eyelids felt gummy and stuck whenever he tried to lift them.

It was like a waking coma. Without much to do, Gregor focused on listening to whatever he could hear. At first, there was gossip about whatever had happened with Nephrophion on the beach.

—"More than a dozen lobsters slain-"

—"The clawers were so affected that they have not yet consumed the dead. The smell is starting to rise, if my sister is not telling tales again."

—"The ague still affects the Overlander, Susannah worries that he will waste away-"

—"The recovery is taking an unexpected amount of time. Perhaps his blood has not adapted to the Underland-"

Sweat soaked his entire body, enough so that his bandages had to be changed frequently. Otherwise the chills would start him shivering. He started counting the intervals between sponge baths as days. It took at least four of them for the fever to break.

Finally, he could move, with only a sliver of strength returned to him. Gregor would only be able to tell his condition had improved once he could take the bandage off of his head. He clicked his tongue to get a new evaluation of the hospital room, finding a washbasin nearby. He was able to stand, but his legs shook with each step.

As he rinsed the gunk out of his eyes, a doctor entered the room. The man sternly insisted Gregor return to bed, so he complied, glad enough to be able to open his eyes. A while later, Susannah greeted him with a tired smile that he recognized from his own parents: relief.

She explained how Gregor had been infected with what she called 'infinitesimal creatures'. It sounded like an Underland version of malaria, and it had been just as serious for him as that kind of parasitic infection could be.

When Gregor asked her what had happened after he won the duel with Nephrophion, she could only shrug, tightlipped.

"There is not much I know for sure, only rumors. Perhaps Kent can tell you when he returns from the ceremony of the New Covenant."

 _So the people of the Fount had managed to create a new agreement with the Clawers, and all while I was laid up in here._

Gregor figured negotiations probably worked out better that without him, if he really was responsible for the drying-out of the clawers' spawning grounds.

When Kent finally did visit Gregor's room, he was followed by Doros, who was cradling Gregor's pack. There were smiles all around. Nephrophion held by his oath to Gregor, and the negotiation was a lot easier when the lobsters had been suppressed by Nephrophion and Gregor.

"There were some worries that you would not pull through," Kent said. "The infinitesimals that live on lobsters are a rare breed, and deadly."

"I guess 'rare' doesn't matter when you get them in a bunch of cuts all across your body. I don't even remember what happened after Nephrophion surrendered."

Gregor saw Doros glance nervously at Kent, but the Fount's acting commander didn't bat an eye.

"Maybe that is for the best," he said. "I have heard that you do not enjoy retellings of your feats as a rager."

Gregor could only frown. He was conflicted on the issue of violence. He was much more comfortable with his talents for fighting now, but he wasn't sure he wanted to be known for it. Fighting was something he did to get things done. He didn't go looking for conflicts- he ended them.

"It's fine," Gregor said. "I just want to know what happened."

The son of York proceeded to tell him what had happened- Gregor and his new thrall were surrounded by clawers. Rather than allow the old order to continue, Gregor had fought back-to-back with the king lobster. With Nephrophion's large size and Gregor's speed and aggression, the attackers were decimated, although Gregor's week in the hospital attested to the fact that the fight was no cakewalk.

Once the lobsters had backed off, and sent the crabs in to try and exhaust the two. Unfortunately for the cancroids, Gregor's harpoon easily outranged their claws, and they lacked the mass or power of the lobsters. He had taken out any that came at him, either impaling them on the point or using the heft of the iron rod to crush their exoskeletons. Nephrophion had not allowed the missing parts of his body to slow him down either, using his remaining claw to tear through whatever stood in his path.

By the end of it, the two combatants for the New Covenant had killed dozens. Gregor had become coated with torn flesh from the clawers he had killed, and had totally burnt himself out, only managing to stumble to the wall before passing out.

"Your record in direct combat against clawers has never been seen before," Doros said. "It will make quite the impression."

"I don't care too much about the record," Gregor said. It wasn't why he did any of it.

"Oh?" Doros asked, a crafty smile sneaking onto his face. "Know you that your record may be consulted in certain tribunals of note, such as those that approve royal marriages?"

"Okay, I guess my record is pretty important," Gregor admitted. "How did you know I'm trying to become approved?"

Doros smiled, without guile this time.

"Sir, I may not have been in your service for long, but your intentions were obvious very soon after I introduced myself to you."

 _Obvious_.

"I collected the codes relating to royal marriages before I left Regalia. Now that you are recovering, these notes may be of use to you."

Doros handed a scroll to Gregor. The same doctor from before arrived soon afterward and chased the two visitors out. Feeling the weakness in his body, Gregor decided to take his time getting better. One part of him wanted to find the nearest boat or bat willing to take him to Regalia, to Luxa. But his rational mind knew that trying to rush things could end up ruining it all.

He wanted to do things right, just this once.

Gregor started from the beginning of the scroll, reading his page's orderly handwriting and trying to ignore the receding waves of nausea that passed through him.

* * *

"It takes much from a fighter to even face an enemy, let alone charge directly at one," the instructor had remarked. "But that may be the key when fighting nephroideans. I never had considered it."

Gregor shrugged, trying to appear humble in front of the small group training in the sandpit.

"I was lucky," Gregor said. "There's a lot to be said for caution." As he spoke, he found his hand running over the deep wound in the side of his head. It was scabbed over now, but it was quite visible either way.

"Caution requires luck, as well," the instructor said, facing the trainees. "Let us take this as a reminder to do improve our odds as much as we can."

The group started their final exercise for the morning- running through the different forms with the harpoon. It was tough to hold the heavy pole still in each awkward pose, but Gregor could feel his strength returning with each day he kept at training. He had stopped paying much attention to how many days it had been since he had left the surface.

With the training done, Gregor took to the grand stairway, hoping to toughen up his legs after months off of his previous regimen. It was not uncommon to see other people with the same idea, so the stairs were packed. It was also somewhat busy around the Fount, thanks to a fresh shipment of new specialized materials only found in Regalia, ferried by the rescue party sent for the fliers.

The expedition to retrieve the bats had recently departed after a few days of basic reconnaissance on the newly exposed tunnel. Howard was attending as the chief physician, just in case any of the stranded fliers needed treatment before returning. Gregor had watched the line of boats disappear into shadow, thinking over what Howard had told him.

"Be prepared," he had said to Gregor, but he could not provide any more information. He only had vague clues from those he knew on the council.

And in addition to that piece of information, Howard had also brought his youngest sister, 'Chimney'. Gregor still did not know if that was her actual name. At this point, he was afraid to ask.

Chim probably would not care. Compared to her sisters and their squabbling, Chimney was a saint of levelheadedness. In fact, her placid personality was the most notable thing about her. She was an apprentice fisher, and was taking Gregor along for a ride that day.

"Greetings," she said once Gregor had finished his running up and down the stairway. She led him through a set of heavy stone doors near the bottom of the city, revealing one of several docks that had been established in well-concealed grottoes.

"The Overlander will be joining us," Chim told the woman who she apprenticed under.

The lady was a well suited match for Chim, as her eyebrows barely raised an inch after the surprising news.

The fishing boat was smaller than the one he had quested down the Waterway with, small enough where having three people on the inside put them all a few inches from each other. As they cast out, rowing lightly, their eyes examined the water nearby very closely. No one wanted to be surprised by a clawer, or something worse.

"Am I risking you both by being here?" Gregor asked, before they had fully cleared the dock area. They seemed on edge to him.

"I would not worry, Overlander," the older woman said, but Gregor wasn't sure if she was saying it reassuringly or if she was actually not concerned.

"There are few of the clawers who would violate the new covenant so soon after your display on the beach and our victory during the siege," the woman said.

Chim nodded slowly, waiting for her teacher to finish before speaking.

"Only the nephroideans lost eggs," she said. "And with a weakened king and depleted numbers, the lobsters have lost much control."

"Huh," Gregor said, thinking it over. "They can't start any wars, or else the crabs or crayfish would just team up to stop it."

"Perhaps," Chim said. "It is true that only the nephroideans drive the fighting."

After that, the boat eased into quiet. Neither of the fishers were interested in chatting, especially once they were casting hooks out on spider-threads with their bare hands. It looked like work that required concentration.

When a line tugged, Gregor was glad that they weren't using just their fingers to reel it in. They were wearing a ring on their middle fingers that had a bar sticking out of it. They wrapped their lines around it, alternating between giving slack and winding the line up in order to tire out the fish.

The catch would be dropped into a bucket between Gregor's legs and he could understand that it was his job to keep the fish from jumping out. Once the bucket was full enough, they rowed back. It was actually kind of boring after the first few fish, and he had failed miserably when he tried to cast a few lines.

At least he knew the Underland could be boring just like the Overland.

Stellovet whistled as Gregor and Chimney were ascending up towards the manor. She was sitting on what looked like a rooftop cafe, a mixed group of people also nearby.

Chimney changed directions midstep, heading straight for the building. It was multiple floors, with simple labels that described each function- **Ceramicks, Alchemical Metallurgy, Applied Arithmetick, Publick House.**

The floor marked 'Publick House' was actually the roof. It was also a tavern, in a sense. No one was getting wild, or stumbling around singing sea shanties, but there was a sense of ease here that Gregor didn't usually get to see.

He was introduced to the group by Stellovet, and enjoyed the fact that nobody did anything weird like stand up and bow. They smiled politely and continued talking. Taking a stopper out of a stone cask, the man next to Gregor poured him a mug of some kind of drink.

It was somewhat warm to the touch, and when Gregor sniffed it, it smelled like mint and herbs. Chim sipped on her own serving, so Gregor figured it wasn't anything too strong, if a teen was allowed it. It tasted a lot like mint, but also quite bitter. Just like tea, he felt more alert as the conversation wore on and his cup emptied.

The group was talking about expansion. The more Gregor heard the more he realized they were specifically talking about how expansion would affect the arts. It was a rapid chatter between a half-dozen people, so Gregor couldn't even track who was saying what. He just sat back and listened.

"I tell you, while a Lodging Minister sits on the council during peacetime, the arts do not flourish."

"Hmm. Perhaps in Regalia. The council holds less power here."

"And yet Regalia produces much more art."

"Regalians produce more of anything than anyone."

"Just as they produce more art or foodstuffs, one might note that they also produce the most waste."

Half of the group grimaced at the crude reference, but the other half found it funny. Gregor could appreciate the quick wit.

"They may have more artisans, but there is less value in certain modes of art."

"Ah, yes, their theatre..."

"Their theatre might as well be carried away by the same currents that run through their washrooms!"

"Now, there is no call for that," Stellovet said, stepping in for the first time.

"An unexpected defense, Stellovet. You are usually so vigorous in your criticism-"

"Do not mistake me, there is little of value in their theatre. Few beyond the youngest children enjoyed the Regalian _Overlander_ show, and that was perhaps their best effort. But to compare Regalian theatre to filth goes too far."

"Ah, yes, indeed. I might add that it is not dirty. Regalian drama seems so... stiff. For a city that only produces dramatic plays, the players inspire very little pathos."

"Well, their stonework is the best."

"Your professional opinion as a stonemason, I presume."

"I wish to master the craft, but there is a longer history and a better tradition in Regalia."

"Yes, yes. Please, tell me more! Must you reference stonemasonry at every opportunity?"

"Please, calm yourself, _amicus_. At least you are not a painter in Troy."

"In fact, take solace in the reality that you are not _anyone_ in Troy."

Nearly everyone laughed at that, and Gregor has no idea why. He still cracks a smile. But then he remembered Sulte, the man from Troy who had saved him and Aurora when they had been trapped in a rockslide. He didn't know much about their art, but the people of Troy fought hard for survival. Maybe they had different priorities.

With the discussion of theatre over with, the group decided that asking an Overlander about things could be interesting. They know a surprising amount when all of them put their heads together. One man even knows that there is something called 'cinema' that involves projection.

A group of them pestered him about the progress of sculpturing using Overland science. Gregor doesn't really know, but he got the feeling that technique-first art had gotten old back home. The few times he visited galleries he recognized that a lot of art there was engulfed in 'the search for meaning', while the art here had to slip in between the work schedules of artists. The group in front him certainly was involved in art of all kinds, but they were not what could be called 'professional artists'.

And while Gregor could hold his own in a conversation, it didn't take long for someone to say something that starts another group-wide debate and leave him behind. Chim tugged on his sleeve and they left, heading back towards the manor.

"When Stellovet is not at work as a scribe, she writes and hosts plays," Chimney said. "She writes tragedies, especially about star-crossed lovers. Do Overlanders know the term?"

"Yeah," Gregor said. "Fate working against them, that kind of thing."

"She may act like a foul beast at times, but I know her heart is in the plays she writes, and not the ones that she acts out at home."

Chimney went into the manor, but Gregor waited outside for longer, looking at the lights of the city and imagining a script to all of it.

 _Is it another tragedy, too?_


	14. Chapter 14 : Regalia and Splendor

The routine faded from novelty to reality. He would train, sometimes helping instruct the recruits, before finding something else to do around town. He learned a lot about life in the Underland every day, but Gregor always made sure to separate out a little bit of time for himself.

There were plenty of places to be alone in the city. Rooftops, alleyways, small outposts. On the day Gregor saw the fliers, he had found a little platform mined out of the rock at the very top of the Fount, by the reservoir. He was thinking about where he would go for lunch (there actually was a difference which dining hall one attended in the city). Debating whether he wanted to eat cabbage two days in a row, he sensed a pattern that had been conditioned into his ears quite a while ago: the flapping of wings.

Gregor stood, straining his ears. And then, the largest formation of fliers he had ever seen came zooming over him. Hundreds of large bats- enough air being moved by wide wings to ruffle his hair as they passed. He took it as a sign. He would return to Regalia alongside the bats. The news he was getting from the few couriers indicated that something big was about to happen there, and for once it wasn't a war.

The council had been making requests for an entire set of things that hadn't been seen for a generation- certain decorations, foods, and fabric. An especially ardent supporter had flat-out told Gregor that they were almost certainly preparing for a royal wedding.

And having already read up on the traditions and requirements, Gregor knew that he would be needed soon. The ceremony happened right after the marriage was approved by tribunal. If he passed his examination, Gregor would go through the ceremony only a few doors down from the tribunal hall. A brief appearance at a reception and then the newly married couple would be shooed away so the guests could start the real party, while the newly-wed were expected to 'consummate, with all proper haste'.

Regardless of how the written law expected them to proceed, Gregor knew at least the formal parts of the marriage were supposed to be rushed. The humans of the Underland were in a precarious situation, and he understood that any amount of delay could get either part of a couple killed. Even love itself would have to move fast, in a race against death.

Gregor would meet that challenge himself. Seeing that the fliers were landing on the beach, he started to head down there. It wasn't until he jumped right over the heads of a crowd of people on the stairs that he realized he was running, faster than he ever had before.

* * *

Luxa had only managed to steal a couple of hours away from her duties, but she decided to make the best of it. Aurora had been requesting a brush-down, a relative rarity for bats, who naturally had short coats.

"I am glad you could struggle your way into this," Aurora said. "We so rarely can meet unburdened."

"You speak it true," Luxa said ruefully. "But at least ours is good work."

She started brushing her bond, only having to lightly comb through the fuzzy fur. Despite the short length, Luxa supposed it at least felt somewhat like a massage. Vikus had been a large proponent of them, especially combined with regular gymnastic conditioning. Even after his nerves had been damaged, Vikus had tried his best to return to normal. By the end, the only part he could secure was a massage.

"Peace, Luxa," Aurora chided in her low voice. "We are at peace."

Luxa realized that she had been pulling too hard and slowed down. She was not sure that peace was here to stay. The enemies had been routed, but there were no treaties, and no proof that they were entirely eliminated as a threat. She needed to see them gone with her own eyes. She could not afford to be surprised again- to be taken from her blind side.

"Is it truly the right time? Luxa asked Aurora. Perhaps asking herself too.

"Forgive the over-used phrase, but there is no time greater than the present," Aurora said. "Hesitating even a moment could result in it never happening."

Luxa hugged Aurora tight around the neck. The flier was speaking from experience. She had lost a mate suddenly in battle, and then her unborn pups soon afterward.

"You will not try again?" she asked her bond.

"I could not imagine it."

The fliers had very particular ideas about loss. Even as bonds, there were facets to it that Luxa could not fathom. Even so, Aurora was right when she said there was no benefit to waiting now that things had reached this point.

Midway through a brushstroke, Aurora's hair stood up straight as needles and her head swiveled.

"Sorry," Luxa said. "I did not know that was painful."

"No, I heard something. Many things, actually."

Luxa had heard nothing herself. It must have been flier-talk.

"What do they say?"

"We are home."

Luxa and Aurora barreled out of their room, trying not to skid on the stone as they got in position to take flight. Her newest guards followed, giving her a respectable amount of space. In the air, Aurora headed directly to the source of the sound. They did not even exit Regalia proper before the origins were made visible. There were hundreds of fliers returning to their bonds in Regalia, a mottled cloud of shadowy color sweeping into the city. Luxa could not hear the words they chattered eat each other but she could imagine the joy they felt in that moment.

Or at least she thought she could only imagine. But she saw someone on the back of a flier passing by and did not have to imagine anymore. He sat alertly at one flier, his dark eyes searching the area around him alertly, before locking onto her own. Gregor had surprised her by appearing before she could even send the official summons, and his smile was part teasing and part earnest.

Even Aurora was surprised, and it took all of Luxa's willpower not to hop off of her back and leap to Gregor. By the time Aurora had looped back and pulled alongside him, Luxa sufficiently regained the Queenly affect she needed in public, especially at a moment as historic as this.

"Greetings, Gregor," she said, wanting to reach out to him, despite the distance between them. "We are gladdened to see you and the fliers return."

"Hey," Gregor said. "Good to be back." He understood the requirements of the situation.

While many of the rescued fliers had split off earlier in the journey to return to their ancestral home, there were still plenty of bonded nats arriving in the city. They left the humans who had assisted them on the expedition, as well as a few mice who had served as scent-guides.

Gregor's flier was one of those that had to descend and let him off on a rooftop. She was going off to look for her bond. Below them in the streets, Regalia had suddenly come alive, crowds of people pushing out into the open, trying to get a view, trying to see their old friends.

Already, some soldiers on the walls were being reunited with their old life-partners. Their reactions were absolutely ecstatic. It was as if they were seeing their dearest friends revived before their eyes. Luxa had remembered the heavy curtain of dark that had pulled around Regalia when so many of the fliers were found to have been vanished, or killed. Against all odds, the survivors had been found and returned.

Aurora landed at the building Gregor had been abandoned at. Under the watchful eyes of her new guards, Luxa could only offer her hands to Gregor for the briefest greeting. Just touching her fingers to him seemed to make them shake.

"How was the Fount?" she asked. "The last messenger said there had been fighting."

Gregor turned and she saw the blackened wound that had been ripped open on the right side of his head. She found herself seizing him by the shoulder and turning his head so she could get a better look at it.

"Ow," Gregor said. "I'm still in recovery."

Luxa could not immediately find her words. It had only been a tear, by the looks of it. Even still, any blow to the head was capable of snuffing one's light. Gregor had been a hair's breadth from death, but he showed nothing for it now than an uneasy smile.

"It's not as bad as you think," Gregor said. "I barely even felt it."

"I know you did not," she said, releasing him. "That is what concerns me most."

Bein reminded of the source of the wound, Gregor's face suddenly went still, as it did sometimes. Luxa did not know exactly what caused it, but she suspected he was being pulled away into a world of nightmarish recollection. It had happened at least once a day when she was with him. Knowing that they were not positive memories, Luxa always tried to head his lapses off.

"Would you do me the pleasure of dining with me?" she asked, stepping closer and speaking just a little louder.

Gregor's eyes refocused on her, leaving the reverie behind.

"Tonight?"

"Yes, along with the council and some of our friends."

His smile was back.

"Sounds special," he remarked.

"If whatever peril occurred at the Fount has not changed your resolve, it will be," Aurora said.

"Is this the Declaration?" Gregor asked. "You already introduced me to the council?"

"Know you each step of the Code?" Luxa was surprised. "I may not have to explain much to you."

Gregor held a finger in the air as if trying to recall something.

"First, the presiding Royal presents a potential candidate to the council. After the council approves the choice, the formal declaration occurs in which all parties confirm the plan. Then the tribunal occurs, and if I pass that then the presentation, along with exchange of rings, followed by the celebration event..."

Gregor's words trailed off as his mind went to what would come after that. Luxa smiled at the one place he seemed to hold back on.

"Soon," she said, wanting to touch him once again, to reassure him with her own hands that he was not the only one who was thinking of it.

The amount of fliers circulating around the city was only increasing. It seemed that the fliers who had once sequestered themselves underground were now taking to the air. Through the swirl of flight, Luxa could see a concentration of bats forming near the High Hall.

"I am needed, Gregor."

Gregor turned, seeing the arches of the palace mobbed by the returning bats.

"Wow," he joked. "Looks like one hell of a traffic jam."

Luxa found herself laughing. Her time in New York had been brief, but it had been more than enough to understand just how aggravating the congested streets could be.

Checking to make sure that her guards weren't looking too closely, Luxa pecked Gregor on his cheekbone before saying farewell.

"Fly you high," Gregor said, as amicably as he could under the circumstances.

Aurora took off for the High Hall. Luxa kept her eyes on Gregor as he stood alone. Was she selfish in taking him away from his home? He seemed isolated on the roof, and Luxa felt no small amount of guilt.


	15. Chapter 15 : Witnessed

Aurora and Luxa gained altitude quickly, cutting through the now-crowded skies. Gregor could hear voices throughout Regalia rise up, shouts and whistles and hoots all struggling to cut through the din. Looking over the edge of the building he was at, Gregor saw the business of the city come to a halt as the people let themselves be taken up in the celebration.

He shared very little with the people below but Gregor still found himself picking up some of the spirit. Maybe because he had lost Ares, he could imagine being reunited.

 _Not that it could ever happen. Some things really do end like that._

Doros joined him on the rooftop, waving off the emaciated flier that had demanded to carry someone back to Regalia despite his condition.

"Where to, sir?" Doros asked, standing attentively.

"Do you have anywhere you want to go?" Gregor asked. "Don't worry about me, I can find my own way anywhere."

Doros looked shiftily at his feet.

"There is nowhere special for me to venture to," he confessed. "No parentage, and the unit to which I belonged as a cadet was eliminated in the previous battle."

"I'm sorry," Gregor said. "I didn't know."

"And I did not tell," Doros said. "What blame there is lies with me."

Gregor tried to argue the point with Doros, but he would not budge.

"Okay, then," Gregor said, throwing his hands in the air with frustration. "I'm going to look around for some of my old friends, if you're so set on following me."

The staircase to the ground floor was tightly spiraled, which led to some close brushes as they passed slower groups and the people exiting each floor. Some of them identified him as the Overlander as he passed but most only had their first clue when he would sidle around them, with a 'Excuse me' or a 'On your left!'.

The streets had only become more full of people since they had begun the descent, so Doros led him through the back streets and through alleyways, abandoned because there wasn't a good view of the air. All the better for the two of them, who had no fliers to search for.

The last time Gregor had been in Regalia, Mareth had asked him to visit. Even though he hadn't had the chance, visiting him now was the next best thing. A passing guard told Doros the neighborhood, which took them on a zig-zag path through the city.

Seemingly everywhere along their route, humans and bats were coming together, as if the roofs and balconies of the buildings all had sculptures dedicated to very concept of the alliance.

But also visible (and more depressingly so) were the lone ones- fliers who were stuck endlessly circling, swooping low to examine someone before sorrowfully returning back. As they crossed a busy street, there were more than a few humans stuck looking up for any sign. The diggers and the gnawers and the nibblers looked on with some interest but were nowhere near as absorbed.

"Gregor the Killer," a rat's voice growled at him as he passed an alleyway.

Most of the others who managed to notice him were more welcoming, but he was going far too quick to start up some kind of impromptu meet-and-greet sesh.

But as they got closer towards the area where Mareth lived, Gregor noticed that he was being tailed by somebody. Every time he checked behind himself, he saw nothing, but there was enough movement in his peripheral vision to give him the sense that someone was hiding.

At the next junction between homes, Gregor nudged Doros off to the left. At first, the page didn't understand what was going on, but his attitude made it clear soon enough. They stooped behind a stone garbage bin, blessedly empty. Gregor waited for his pursuer to try and catch up. His hand went to his knife, but Gregor stopped it. He didn't have any reason to believe his life would be at danger from the pursuer.

He was right, because the thing that came after them was none other than a little beige-colored nibbler. Not as small as a pup, but surely not an adult.

"Heya!" Gregor shouted, and the mouse practically flipped midair, squealing shrilly in abject terror.

"Whoa, there," Gregor said, now seeing that the one who had been following him was barely past being called a pup. "I didn't mean to spook you."

"Oh?" the little mouse squeaked, looking out from underneath one paw.

Gregor's assistant crouched, to be closer to his level.

"I am called Doros, and this is Gregor, the Overlander," he said. "What is your name?"

"Set," the mouse squeaked. "I am Set."

"Nice to meet you, Set," Gregor said. "But why were you following us?"

"I apologize," Set said. "I have never seen an Overlander, so I was following the scent..."

"Well, you've found me," Gregor said. "I'm fresh out of prizes right now, though."

"May- May I accompany you?" Set asked hesitantly.

Doros looked at a tall circular tower that was higher than any of the buildings around it. About midway up it, windows with large torches stood. Gregor got the feeling it was like a clock tower.

"It seems quite early for school to be out."

"But it is, good sir. On account of the fliers."

Doros shrugged. He had no way of telling otherwise.

"Alright," Gregor said. "I'm convinced."

It wasn't much further from there to Mareth's home. Gregor wasn't sure where it was, until a man called to him from a window one floor up.

"Overlander! Mareth told me you might be passing by."

The man was large and musclebound, but happened to be wearing an apron. A young girl peeked out from behind its hem.

"I would have invited you in for dinner, but I am told that you have a far more important one to be attending. Mareth has already departed for the palace alongside Andromeda."

The man checked the time-tower.

"If you do not make haste, you might even be late," he said. "Take Elm to Thriddle street and you should have a direct path there."

With the man's urging, Gregor hurried quickly along the streets, Doros falling into a lopsided jog while little Set continued to scamper after them. They were gone so fast that Gregor hadn't had a chance to ask the man for his name. The way he had mentioned Mareth made him think that he was close.

As they pushed towards the palace they pushed towards the busiest parts of the city. Now that Gregor was known to have returned, he was almost immediately recognized. Whatever anonymity he might have found in the Fount was immediately gone now.

One benefit was that the throngs of people gave him space, if only to gawk. There were no guards specially assigned to him this time, though, although Gregor exchanged brief salutes with some he found stationed at posts along the way.

The elevating platform seemed to be waiting for him to arrive, and Doros and Set were allowed to come without question. Just as the signal was given and the winches above were starting to be turned, a high-speed blur leaped out of the crowd, landing on the platform. The guards did not bat an eye.

"I tried not to keep you waiting," the new arrival said. "But the man himself showed up as soon as I was gone."

Ripred snorted to hide any hint of happiness in his voice.

"Nice to see you around, Gregor. The word around is that you've made the choice to stay."

"Yep," Gregor confirmed. "This is my home now."

"Oh, yeah," Ripred said, "You made that pretty clear at the Fount. Take it from someone who once tried to ally with the lobsters- you were trying too hard to prove yourself, dueling them."

"If you know so much about the lobsters, do you think the new treaty will hold?" Gregor asked.

Ripred tossed his head as if the question was easy.

"Treachery isn't even a biological option for them," the experienced warrior said. "As long as York and his kids play by the rules down there, the agreement will stand."

Ripred seemed to notice Doros and Set at that moment.

"Picking up an entourage already, are you?"

Gregor shrugged. One was his assigned assistant and the other was some young mouse who was curious enough to follow him.

"Don't be so coy about it," Ripred said wearily. "Having people you know and trust is an important tool for ruling. Do you think my faction would have survived if the likes of Lapblood and Mange did not give me their aid? Even letting Twitchtip sneak around the nest ended up being useful."

Most of the names Ripred mentioned had died on missions for him. Gregor hoped he would never have to put the people he trusted in situations that might get them killed.

Ripred pushed ahead to the High Hall and its dining room, but Doros insisted on tidying Gregor up before he went on, using a damp cloth to wipe down his face and beating the dust of travel off of his embroidered tunic.

"This is as far as I go," Doros said. "I will find you at your assigned quarters, wherever they will be. Best of luck."

Set looked confused, and lost. Which made sense, since Gregor had basically led the young guy into the biggest and most imposing structure in town.

"What's up?" Gregor asked. "If you want to go back, I'm sure I can get Doros to-"

"Gregor, sir, I wish to serve you!" squeaked Set. "My father used to speak quite highly of you."

 _Ripred's little speech was meant more for Set than for him._

"Uh..." Gregor stalled. "If you get permission, sure. What can you do?"

Surprised at being accepted, Set eventually managed to list a very long list of abilities. It included math, all the way up to a pretty advanced level, in addition to a variety of other services- Tree of Transmission communication, scent-searching, courier services-

"Alright, alright," Gregor said, trying to slow him down. "You're hired. I'll find something for you to do whenever you show up."

Set practically whipped his tail raw with excitement.

With Doros and Set accounted for, Gregor headed for the High Hall. More than a month had passed since the battle, and there wasn't even a hint of the the smell of blood.

 _They've gotten good at cleaning their palace up after every close call._

Walking down the halls, Gregor was feeling an uncomfortable amount of similarity to his previous time here- in a race against time as he tried to get to Luxa before an entire army.

While he had made it in time, he was too late for so many. Their bodies had long since been cleared from the hallways. Some unfortunate group must have spent weeks scouring the blood and gore from the floors and walls and roofs. It must have been everywhere. The buzzers had been everywhere. The twisters had been everywhere. The dead, everywhere.

Gregor had kept his pistol and his knife on his person, leaving the rest of his equipment with Doros. Even in the palace, he felt vulnerable. A shadow moved from behind a pillar, but Gregor did not sense a threat.

"Hail," Hazard greeted. "We were beginning to think you were lost."

"I might have been," Gregor said. "But just a little bit."

Hazard laughed, stomping a bare foot on the floor.

"In any case, it is good to have you," Hazard said, extending his arms around him before Gregor took the cue to hug.

"I hope things have been better around Regalia."

"They have been like a dream," Hazard said. "Were matters like that for you both, as well?"

"I guess you could say that," Gregor said. "Has she been talking about the Overland?"

"I have hardly seen Luxa, as occupied as she has been after her return. Come, we must be present in the hall before she'll even enter."

The High Hall bore no signs of the brutal massacre and the desecration that had once been there. The Regalians were made of some stern stuff, if they were willing to have a meal close to where so many had died. Gregor figured he had picked up on it, too, if he was here.

Nerissa was waiting in the dining room, tilting her head in a strange greeting because her hands were taken up with a seating chart. She seemed quite authoritative when she had the instructions in her hands.

"Gregor, over there," she said, pointing at one end of the table. "And you there, Hazard."

Gregor was once again sat away from most of the people he knew. Except this time, he was sitting at the foot of the table. He knew little about courtly decorum, but it seemed like the head and foot of the table were actually important points. Gregor's position there was meaningful.

The ministers of the council were already seated, and Gregor found himself by some of them- the Fisheries man, who he could recognize.

The others at his end introduced themselves as Gregor approached. The strangely giddy Lodging Minister and the Minister of War, who was not, in fact, Perdita.

"I am the civilian who expresses our wishes to the soldiers," the minister explained once Gregor was seated. "Much like a King or Queen would issue a command, although of course subservient to your- I mean their will."

Sulte, the delegate from Troy, was also assigned to sit nearby.

"Overlander," the man greeted kindly. Gregor had learned that the people of Troy had originally founded their settlement when they rejected Sandwich's prophecies and set off on their own. Gregor was especially unimportant in their eyes, but Sulte had not been harsh towards him recently. Troy's assistance had earned them a place on the council, no doubt filled best by a commander from the war.

Mareth swung in soon after, and Gregor could see him pat Andromeda at the door. They had taken extra time to fly together. He was positioned midway down the table, so Gregor could do little more than wave and nod.

Ripred entered last, followed by Queen Luxa. There wasn't any fanfare or ceremony, as had been observed during the farewell dinner before the Poison forces had attacked. She stepped in authoritatively. She was clothed in a simple gown, and her hair was once again let down.

They all stood as she entered, and sat only after she had. She took some time finding the right position from which to speak, and then started.

"I, Luxa, Queen of Regalia, announce my intention to partner with the man known as Gregor the Overlander."

It was no surprise to any of them, but the words had caused something strange within him. It was formal, but something about the added structure brought things into intense focus. He knew he would remember the moment.

"We witness your intent," the Lodging Minister said. "And how does he respond?"

Gregor had studied the instructions and knew what to say.

"I return these intentions," he said. "Without reservation, I would partner with Luxa, Queen of Regalia."

There was some more talking after that, mainly between the ministers as they went through the ritual of setting Gregor's tribunal for the already-decided time tomorrow, while Gregor and Luxa maintained a lock on each other's eyes. As soon as that was done, the food was served. Gregor knew he was hungry after the trip from the Fount, but he felt too nervous to really dig in.

Sulte noticed, and leaned in to talk quietly with Gregor.

"I must confess, what I have heard of your time at the Fount would have me believe you would be ravenous."

"You're right," Gregor said, deciding to confide just a little in the man. "But I've had plenty of time to recover from the fight."

"From one trial to another for you," Sulte smirked. "I would recommend replenishing your strength. The tribunal tomorrow will not be the end of your day..."

Having said his piece, Sulte sat back into his chair. From across the table, Luxa caught Gregor's eye with an inquisitive look.

He made a little gesture as if to say _it was nothing._ She nodded with a very small motion, keeping the discussion going with her neighbor.

For his part, Gregor was also trying to fulfill the role of entertainer, or perhaps sustainer. He talked about what he had been involved in at the Fount, downplaying his own personal role. The folk in earshot were all surprised that the Covenant had been renegotiated, and under Nephrophion, of all the lobsters.

"No doubt they have argued for a better position," one minister noted. "Their fishers and sailors were prey to all sorts of terror."

"That reminds me," Gregor cut in. "What's the state of fishing in the Underland?"

The Fisheries Minister beamed at finally having a chance to speak.

"Due to your intervention at the Fount, the rivers may now be fished less lightly. No gnawer will go hungry while we continue building their fish farms."

"Weren't the crawlers also a big part of the overfishing problem?"

"Well, yes," the man said, tugging at his collar. Gregor guessed the man wasn't expected to be grilled by him.

"You can take your time explaining," Gregor said. "I still think we're on the first course."

They all stepped out into the High Hall afterwards, just like they had at the farewell party that had started all of this. They stood at the balcony, watching the shadowy forms of freed fliers stretch their wings over Regalia.

Mareth was the first to pull Gregor aside.

"Whatever happened to your promise to see me, Gregor?" he asked, only partly joking. "Until Ripred told me the truth, I believed you dead."

"Aw, come on," Gregor said. "It was tough enough to get Luxa out of the Palace."

Mareth took an uneasy look at the High Hall. Gregor knew the instructor hadn't been there, or else he wouldn't have survived.

"Very little light escaped the palace then, but the normal citizens here will hold the memory of their shine with them."

Most of the army had been evacuating citizens or guarding key buildings like the hospital. The attacks across were meant only to prevent reinforcements arriving at the palace, the location of their true target.

"The city looks like its recovering pretty quickly," Gregor said. "I went through it on the way to your place, but you were already gone."

"Met you Marcus, or my step-children?" Mareth asked.

"I saw a girl poking her head out," Gregor said, remembering the little one who reminded him of Boots as a baby. "And I guess I saw Marcus too, if he looks like the kind of guy who splits his time between housekeeping and weightlifting."

"Accurate," Mareth smiled with obvious fondness. "Little Greta was one of the few newly-orphaned before you and the Queen made your escape."

Mareth gestured at the immaculate stone tiles of the High Hall, sweeping his hand past his missing leg.

"It seems the primary trait of us Regalians is a quick recovery. Is it strange to you?"

Gregor had to think about that one, and Mareth left before Gregor could prepare an answer, saying something about having to get back home before too late. A few ministers that Gregor hadn't spoken to at dinner moved in quickly, all smiles and best wishes. At least no one was openly resisting him as a suitor, but it did get difficult trying to track everyone's position and the vague requests they were trying to pass off on him.

"I promise I'll look into that when the time comes," Gregor said to the last minister, not even sure that he would actually remember.

"Worry not," Nerissa said as she approached, Howard and Hazard flanking her. "Just as I assist Luxa, I am sure that you will have your aides."

"That's a load off my shoulders," Gregor said. "Or maybe my head. But how are you doing?"

"Times have been harder," Nerissa said. "But the return of the Queen and the Overlander will lift many spirits. Ours included."

Howard gripped Gregor's hand tightly and then hugged him even harder.

"You did so much to bring light to the Fount, and it was your first visit," Howard said. "I am gladdened, Gregor. I truly am."

"I don't know," he returned, starting to wiggle in the prolonged embrace. "I showed up too late to help York-"

"Please, Gregor, you saw him as well as I did. My father is a man of such character that a boon for his settlement easily outweighs the ghostly pain of a lost limb."

It was tough to agree, but Gregor could at least pretend in front of Howard that he was right.

"With suitable assistance, humans forgive easily," Hazard said. "After so many gnawers turned against the Bane, we allowed the bonds of peace to seal even our deepest wounds."

"In the earliest Chronicles, it is said that the first fliers and the first of Sandwich's troop came to blows," Nerissa said. "But by being hurt, each side came to admire the strengths of the other."

"Our point is that you could hardly be accused of anything," Howard said, cutting between his relative's tangents. "In the end, you have helped much and harmed very, very little."

Gregor let himself be convinced. He trusted these three after everything they'd been through together.

"Maybe I can improve my record going forward," he said, his one last gasp of self-doubt.

"I have few doubts about that, _amicus_ ," Hazard said. "Or maybe I should call you _frater_ if you are to be wed to my cousin."

"You are already as kin to me," Howard said. "I have no doubts that the tribunal will find you worthy to be a King."

"Speaking of which, I must head to my quarters," Hazard said. "I will participate tomorrow, as arbitrator, but not as tribune."

"The difference being that a tribune actually decides the case, while you're the guy keeping the whole thing fair," Gregor said.

"Indeed," Hazard said. "If you already know so much, I expect it will not be difficult."

"I never doubted this," Nerissa said with her faint smile. "I told Vikus, and he bade me to keep it a secret."

Hazard stopped mid-step.

"Was this prophecy?" He asked.

"There were visions," Nerissa said, but she kept tight-lipped. Hazard tossed his shoulder-length hair in frustration and walked off.

"When you two gave the toast over the berrywine, I thought it might be fate," Howard said. "Although only Luxa made it so."

"What do you mean?" Gregor asked. "I know she once said I stole the word 'victory' from her family motto."

"Yes, you toasted to Victory," Nerissa recalled. "When Luxa toasted to Light, she was completing the motto."

" _Lux et Victoria_ is her house's motto _,_ " Howard said. "I do not know if it is correct in form, but many families began creating mottoes long before ours."

"Neither was fate," Nerissa said, somewhat sternly. "One toasted to victory because he was known as Gregor the Victorious. The other toasted to Light because she yearned to be closer to him."

"Even though we got into a fight just minutes after that," Gregor mentioned.

"If you had not cared for each other, there would be no fight," Nerissa said sagely. "Be happy enough that you will be united in peace soon."

Even the bats that had been cooped up for months were starting to tire off, starting their lazy gliding turns to their roosts within the city. The crowd surrounding Luxa had thinned out, too. Ripred, however, didn't have any obligations to be patient. He ambled over to Gregor before fixing him with an an observant eye.

"You're doing better," the rat said. "Had a nice little vacation?"

"You could call it that," Gregor said. "Or are you talking about the Fount?"

"I meant the Overland, obviously," Ripred said. "Do you know how hard it was to keep the news of you being bedridden at the Fount a secret from Queenie over there?"

"Thanks for that," Gregor said, being totally honest.

"She had more than enough on her plate at the time," Ripred said. "The workload will still be heavy, even if she were to divide it equally with you. And she won't."

"What?"

"Come on, Gregor," Ripred sneered. "You are far from an expert on running a city. Overlanderes spend their first two decades of life learning trivia. She spent her childhood learning how to live up to her status as Queen."

"Would she split the work sixty-forty, her way?" Gregor guessed.

"Seventy-thirty, unless you end up surprising us all with some hidden store of wisdom," Ripred said. "That's more than enough to keep you busy until you find something you're especially good at."

"Any leads, then?" Gregor asked. "If you're already judging my character."

"Parachuting? Regalia's first dictionary of slang? Overlander exchange program?" Ripred joked. "Figure it out for yourself."

Gregor added 'figuring things out for himself' to his internal list of weaknesses. He worked best when the stakes were high and very few options were available, when he could choose an action and follow it all the way. Finding his place in the wider world was the difficult thing, even when it was narrowed down to just one city.

He snuck a peek at Luxa, who was in the middle of arguing some point between the War Minister and Sulte. Finally, Sulte managed to convince the War Minister, who offered a begrudging salute before disappearing.

Finally, she was free. Gregor stepped over on light feet to her, glad to have a partial return to privacy. He felt his heart quicken as she turned to look at him through her veil of pale hair.

"Ripred said you've had a hell of a week," Gregor mentioned.

"Not as hellish as yours, now that your cat is free of the sack," Luxa said. "They say the pestilence came closer to ending you than the lobster's claws."

" _Pshh,_ " Gregor said. "It was all exaggerated. I was awake the whole time."

"That is the sign of a more serious ill here," Sulte said. "There exists a similar ague in the bone-pits of Troy."

Gregor wanted to remind Sulte that he wasn't helping but it seemed like he was aligned more with Luxa than him.

"Leave the man alone," Ripred said. "Even if he was betting with his life, there was enough at stake to make it worthwhile."

Ripred was enough of a wildcard to make things even. Even though he always had a sharp word to say, he was kindhearted enough to use them for the right reason. Case in point, when he shooed off everyone so that Luxa could speak privately to Gregor. They stood closer together on the large balcony of the High Hall, open to the gigantic cavern and the city below.

"Forget the circumstances," she said. "I have never been able to be angered with you for long."

"The same goes for me," he returned, as they held hands the Overland way, side by side. They leaned against a planting urn, its new seed just beginning to sprout.

"You may think me _creepy_ for this," she mentioned, reaching into the loose sleeve of her gown and taking out a little square.

As she took it into the light between them, Gregor saw what it was- the old picture they had taken together, right before he had left the Overland years ago. They had been kids, playing around with the instant camera Mrs. Cormaci had sent down, in all her mysterious wisdom. They had taken two shots of note- Luxa was holding the one where both of them were happy.

"I hope it isn't creepy," Gregor said. "Because I have the other one."

For some reason he was still carrying around his wallet, even though there were few reasons to here. He flipped it open and drew out a similar picture- he had marred this one at some point by folding it. There was a crease right down the middle, splitting the two of them apart in the photo. Their faces were somber, serious. But he had held onto it all the same.

"Many counseled me against _us_ ," Luxa said. "I know convincing your mother and father was no easy task."

"Choosing was easy," Gregor said. "It's the time apart that's been hard. Until very recently, I thought I was meant to just be alone. People would show up in my life, and I- I just couldn't be with them."

"Many tried to be accepted into my life. At ages sixteen and eighteen and twenty, the council made large efforts. But Vikus still made himself an effective deterrent. Could he have guessed?"

"Nerissa said she told him about her visions of it," Gregor said. "Even though none of the prophecies mentioned it."

Luxa lifted her hand to adjust her crown.

"So we are beyond prophecy now," she said. "If that matters."

"It might not," Gregor said. "We're deciding what our fate will be. Together."

"Together," Luxa confirmed.

Just as in the Fount, the homes and offices of Regalia were going dark. The time for sleep had come to many, if only to wake up the next day and continue the great project they called life.

The time to part had come. And the next time they would be together, the closeness would last. Luxa kissed Gregor, softly and with the kind of serene passion that is only available to those who feel they have all the time in the world. And then they left each other.

* * *

 **Author's Note: The penultimate batch releases at the end of this week.**

 ** _Life anew shall begin,_**  
 ** _For two as one and one._**  
 ** _The last challenge yet remains hidden,_**  
 ** _In this land without a sun._**


	16. Chapter 16 : His Trial

It was somewhat of a self-tying knot, the business of the wedding tribunal. As Queen, Luxa had the responsibility of ensuring that justice was carried out, but as the sponsor for Gregor as suitor, she was barred from participating. She sat in the gallery with a whole collection of other dignitaries and more than a few busybodies. Her cousins were nearby, but kin were certainly outnumbered by the hundreds of officials and administrators that were needed to organize the city. She hoped they had suitable replacements working in their stead.

The three tribunes responsible for judging Gregor's worthiness were similarly both familiar and outmatched. Miravet represented her blood by being her grand-aunt. The Lodging Minister represented the needs of the time. The third tribune was a neighborhood Elder elected by the other Elders of Regalia to represent the will of her people.

Gregor was positioned on a square stage in the center of the hall, with the arena-seating wrapping nearly all the way around him. Despite being boxed in by the crowd, Luxa thought that he was looking almost serene, standing with arms crossed behind his back. It was a rare demeanor in the Tribunal Hall, where so many had been judged for crimes.

There was no crime this time, so the buzz of the crowd was remarkably high and excited- no one would be exiled or executed here. Hazard arrived in the Hall, and the din of the group became quieter and finally faded into silence as he took to the stand- a booth of stone from which he could address both the council and Gregor.

"With all assembled, we may begin the proceedings," Hazard said, reciting from the skins in front of him. "The matter at hand: The worthiness of one Gregor, the Overlander."

The audience stirred at the mention of his name. Luxa could not tell why. Perhaps they were expecting the public's name for him, 'Gregor the Victorious'.

"Being that the Queen has herself selected the candidate, the tribunal may consider the matter of marital consent settled, if there are no objections from any party."

Hazard paused, looking at Luxa and then Gregor.

"Very well. This is the first such tribunal in a generation, and so many will not know the proceedings. At this juncture, the tribunes will announce the value that they offer to judge a potential king by."

Miravet stood up first.

"I will judge him by loyalty to his people," she announced.

Murmurs spread in the crowd. Luxa could agree that it was an important factor, but she hoped the discussion would not turn upon the long-departed Henry, the misguided cousin who had betrayed his people out of fear.

The Lodging Minister went afterward.

"I will judge the Overlander on his capability for action."

"The Elders will judge Gregor the Victorious on his moral character."

Morality was certainly an unheard of value after schooling was complete in Regalia. Typically, after much debate within the students, they would come to the same conclusion as the people before them: what is ethical for Regalians is that which preserves Regalia. The fact that the Elders had chosen it as their value meant either that they were unsure of Gregor's ability to choose what was best, or they wanted to prevent an incompatibility with Luxa's values.

Solovet and Vikus had married in the hopes their shared support for Regalia would trump all. But time had shown that their differences were too great.

The questioning began. The Elder was allowed to go first.

"A historical situation," she began. "You are at the Garden of Hesperides. A battle is unfolding- fliers and humans versus gnawers."

A hiss of disapproval rose up, from more than just the rats in the room.

"At one point, you may win the battle, but there is also an equal chance of losing the battle if things continue as they have. An advisor informs you that the floodgates can be opened, leading to your immediate and complete victory, with few additional losses. Do you decide to stay the course, or open the flood gates?"

The audience grew still as the Elder completed her tale. Essentially, she was asking if Gregor would carry out the same orders that Solovet had given Hamnet, years ago. Actions that had killed hundreds of gnawer pups. Actions that had caused him to go insane. Although indeed, the flood at Hesperides lead to a complete victory for Regalia.

"I issue an order to retreat," Gregor said.

"For what reason?" The Elder asked, aghast.

"If I start a battle and my side ends up with a 50 percent chance of losing, a massive error has been made. How could someone follow a commander who was essentially flipping a coin with their lives?"

"But the dam-" The Elder tried to add.

"Opening the gates to the dam and drowning some of my own troop in addition to all of the noncombatants is an even worse decision."

"You would choose to lose and retreat?" The woman asked, clearly beginning to rethink calling Gregor 'the Victorious'.

"The situation was a loss from the beginning," Gregor said. "The Garden of Hesperides was a gift given in good faith to the gnawers. In flooding it and drowning the innocents there, we lost a lot more in goodwill than we gained in strategic advantage."

"Overlander, you debate history now and not morality."

"If we forget the mistakes of the past, we are neglecting both history and morality."

The crowd responded with applause. Gregor did not allow himself a smirk, but knowing him, Luxa knew he was probably more surprised than smug.

"The audience shall settle!" Hazard yelled, surprising even Luxa with the volume and the forcefulness of his usually gentle voice.

"Tribune, have you more questions?" Hazard asked.

The woman shook her head. Luxa could not read her expression from her position, but she hoped that Gregor had not just sabotaged his own trial for the sake of making a point.

The Lodging Minister was up next.

"How many have you killed, Overlander?" he asked, casually, much to the consternation of the onlookers.

"Uh... Excuse me?" Gregor asked. He wasn't believing his ears.

"Could you provide a number for those whose light you have ended?"

Gregor looked confused.

"No, I couldn't," he ended up saying.

"Hmmmmm," the Lodging Minister said, reaching the point of theatrics. "Allow me to limit it to one category: humans. How many humans have you killed, Gregor?"

Instantly, Luxa knew the true allegiance of the Lodging Minister. She had not selected him- the council had. And now that she had gone around their list of potential mates, they were using him to sabotage her choices. Or perhaps the Lodging Minister was staging a one-man mutiny. Either way, it was hostility she sensed from him.

"You cannot even number the dead, Overlander. Know you how rare it is for us to murder? I am sure you have been told. It is almost as bad as killing one's kin."

Regardless of why the Lodging Minister was sabotaging the tribunal, Luxa knew that he was obtaining the correct effect. The crowd was looking at Gregor in a new light. She checked the expressions of the council members, but they were less transparent. And because the tribunes were all facing away from her, she could only guess at their reactions.

"I'm no murderer," Gregor said, his voice cutting straight through the haze. "The circumstances were entirely different."

Luxa knew he spoke true, but he would have to convince an entire room before the reality of his past mattered.

"Were you conscripted or did you volunteer to join the military?"

"I volunteered. I was young-"

"And did you volunteer knowing what would be asked of you?"

"I volunteered knowing that I would be putting my life at risk for the sake of others."

From her position in the first row, Luxa could see him smile. His circuitous statements were part of a strategy.

"To be clearer: Did you volunteer knowing that you would kill other humans?"

"That's never a guarantee in war," Gregor said. "I'm sure everyone here knows that there are fighters who never see combat. The purpose of a soldier has never been killing."

"Oh?" the Lodging Minister said. "What is purpose of a soldier, if not to kill?"

"Armies are formed to project force," Gregor said, trying to split his attention between the audience and the tribunes. "Because there's nothing to be sure of during a war, you can't say soldiers are just meant to kill. The purpose of soldiers is to be what an army needs them to be."

Realizing that he was losing track of his questions, the Lodging Minister made a show of going back to his table and looking through his papers. He had retreated.

Luxa suspected the man had underestimated the mind of Gregor. Because he spoke so informally and his voice was foreign, it might be easy for a stranger to presume that the former Warrior of prophecy was little more than a berserker with a soft spot for the other races of the Underland.

But she knew the truth. A current of wit ran just beneath his surface. He listened and learned from those around him, and the connections he made had often entirely reversed poor situations they had been in on their quests. He had a sharp mind, but he was not obsessed with proving it. She felt privileged to be one of the few people 'in' on the secret.

The Lodging Minister returned from his performed review of his documents.

"Let us return to my original line of questioning. Given that you volunteered to be a soldier and killed others as a soldier, there is only one question that matters: would you kill other humans again?"

Even Luxa found herself suddenly focusing on Gregor. What would he choose?

"I've never killed out of malice," Gregor said. "I don't know what my emotions are like when I'm raging, but it isn't anger, or hate."

He stood from the stone cube he had been sitting on.

"In Regalia, I know that we cherish life. We don't want to see it go to waste. But I also know that Regalia has, at times, executed their own citizens for wrongdoing. And I know that when I stood beside our soldiers and fought the gnawers, I wasn't just disposing of monsters."

The few rats in the crowd shuffled anxiously. They weren't fond of having the wars of the past mentioned. Luxa could see Ripred's large form skulking by an entrance, resting himself against the doorframe. He acted nonchalant, but an ear was cocked towards the stage. Perhaps he wanted to know the conclusions his protege had come to about war.

"Both sides were killing people. People with families, with children and mates and friends. And somehow, in war, we can ignore that and just kill. Why?" Gregor had clearly not written the speech out in advance. He was just expressing his thoughts. "How could things have come to that point?"

He sat down, but continued talking.

"I think the root of all of this is the fact that people are never fighting just for themselves. They called me the Warrior once, but that had more to do with what I did for other people than what I could do for myself. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had died back then. How my family would have been affected, how Queen Luxa and Regalia would have been affected."

He scoffed at himself. She could see him looking rueful at the very idea.

"People are tough here. They probably could have survived. But Ares, my bond, or my friends- I don't think they would take my death so lightly."

 _He is right,_ Luxa thought to herself. _Even before he became so much to me, I would have gone mad if even a single companion more fell to the gnawers_.

"So you asked me if I would kill again. I've stayed up some nights thinking about it. How many did I save by leading King Gorger to his death? How many deaths did I cause by refusing to slay Pearlpelt, before he truly became the Bane? When I killed gnawers, how many of them left behind pups? When I fought cutters and twisters years ago, was I really setting us up for the Poison forces and their devastating rampage?"

He shook his head.

"I can't answer those questions. But I have no choice but to believe that I have never hurt anyone unnecessarily. Not a human, not a mouse, not a rat, not a crawler, not a clawer, not a flier, none of them."

His voice had taken on a strange quaver, and it became clear that he was on the verge of tears.

"I will always pick the diplomatic solution over the violent one. When you follow another person's orders, you don't always get that choice. Sometimes situations have already moved beyond diplomacy."

His answer was coming to its conclusion, and the council was all leaning in, eager to hear what Gregor the Victorious would resolve to do.

"To protect life and to give us all time, I would kill," Gregor said. "But only for the purposes of defense. Unprovoked attacks lead us all down the spiral staircase of retribution. Anybody who was present at the Firelands or Troy would know where it leads: devastation on all sides, death for so many..."

He stopped, oddly, scanning the audience. Luxa only realized that Gregor was looking for her when she stirred and his eyes settled on her.

"I will avoid that path. The path that brought death for the many," he repeated. "And victory only for the few."

There was a period of intense silence after he had finished speaking. Even the minister who had been so intent on questioning him before was at a loss for words. The silence was broken only by a loud, sharp crack. Luxa squared her shoulders and limbered herself, automatically preparing to dodge.

But the sound had come from Hazard, standing at his podium. He was applauding Gregor with loud, slow claps. He was soon joined by Howard. The action was taken up across the room- a standing ovation for Gregor and his now-proven resolve. The people of Regalia had now accepted him as a worthy partner to their queen. She could see so many of the people she had known since birth here, accepting him and his beliefs.

Most of them were not truly close. But still Luxa felt a connection to them, a connection to her city and the role they had accepted her in. She had ruled alone for many years. But finally, the assembled group had come to realize, it was time for the lone reign to end. To them, Gregor was more than suitable to partner with her. The Warrior had now been erased from their minds. They saw him for what he truly was, and what he could be.

Hazard attempted to restore normalcy to the crowd, but it was a lost cause. After only two of the three tribunes, Gregor the Victorious had a new and noble image. Hazard settled for a moderately quiet audience.

The third and last tribune was Miravet.

"I was to judge the Overlander on loyalty to his people," she began. "As one of the last remaining blood relatives of our Queen, I wanted to ensure that her partner would be steadfast."

Her face up until that point had been stern. But she let a smile break forth upon her aged face.

"There is little reason for me to continue, in light of his testimony and his personal history. Arbitrator, I am ready to deliver my decision."

Hazard coughed and tried to match the formality of his relative.

"Proceed, Tribune."

"Gregor the Victorious is perfectly suited to serve as a king of Regalia," she said. "And I wish him the best of luck."

Miravet found Luxa in the crowd as well, and they shared a deep nod of recognition. The term 'greataunt' could not accurately represent how close the two had become, after the deaths of so many. They were kin as much as any of the others. And as the eldest, she represented authority more than any other member of her family. It meant a lot to Luxa that she was here.

The Elder Tribune interrupted the crowd before it could begin a cheer.

"I also deliver my decision: Although unconventional by our standards, Gregor the Overlander is not an immoral man, despite the baseless rumors that had once cast ill shadows upon his honor."

The Elder sat down immediately afterward. And this time, no cheer threatened to bubble up. After all, there was still one last tribune. The dreaded Lodging Minister.

He addressed Hazard directly, but his haughtiness was enough to carry his words to the whole room.

"Some may criticize my actions as needless obstruction," he said. "They would be wrong. As we all know, my position on the council and the Cabinet is meant to be temporary. I have no time to waste. I was performing my job here, against the wishes of the rest of the council. It is only through the most rigorous trials that our true value shines. And Gregor the Victorious has demonstrated such value today. The decisions shall be unanimously in support of him, three of three."

"Good, good," Hazard said, breaking the rules of decorum. "The tribunal hereby honors Gregor the Overlander, and recommends he be wed posthaste to the Good Queen Luxa. The ceremony will take place-"

Whatever Hazard had left to say was buried underneath a second wave of applause. The clapping was now also accompanied by cheers and the familiar Wedding Chant.

 _For one and one is two,  
And two is one and one,  
So shall be joined this pair:  
The time for life anew has begun._

It had been another rhyming invention from Regalia's earliest days. She had seen wedding processions on the streets of Regalia and even a few times in the Palace (courtesy of her own authority granting permission to guests). Hearing it so many times, she could scarcely have imagined it having any impact on her.

But now the hall was filled with people stirred into action. Gregor was led out of one exit and Luxa was being shown the way to another. Servants were moving quickly down the halls, carrying last-minute supplies for both the ceremony and the reception. Luxa was not headed to either of those halls. First, there was the matter of the Preparation. Both partners in a marriage would go through a version of it. All she knew was that it was yet another ritual.

Hazard and Howard stopped at the door.

"I shall see you at the hall," she assured them.

The two of them did not move. Perhaps they, like her, were still adjusting to the idea of her as a bride.

"Shoo, shoo, now," Miravet said, appearing from the opposite corridor. "Go and see if Gregor needs any help."

As the two headed off, Nerissa took Luxa by the hand, and led by Miravet, they crossed the threshold into the preparation room.


	17. Chapter 17 : Undone (M)

Gregor let an involuntary yelp as he sank into the tub.

"What is the matter?" Hazard asked, peeking around the stone divider.

"Is it supposed to sting?"

On the orders of Mareth, he had gotten into the tub to scrub himself down. It was part of the _life anew_ thing they used in the chant.

"You'll find that the sting wears away with time," Mareth added, also adding his head to peek around the divider at him submerged up to his neck in some sort of herbal bath.

"It's kind of cold," Gregor said. "But you're right that the sting wears off."

"Good," Mareth said, and tossed a washcloth at him. "Now, you must scrub every inch of your being. First, there will be a tickle, then a heat."

Before he disappeared behind the petition again, he chuckled.

"And after the heat, there will be an even greater sting."

Gregor got to work scrubbing, and found that even lightly brushing the cloth against his skin would open it up to a weird sensation. It was kind of like those hot/cold compresses in the Overland. There was a cold prickle of numbness and then his skin would heat up. He knew that he was done once the entire tub of bathwater had turned lukewarm from his body heat.

He dried himself off and got into the clothes that had been left for him. The dark purple robe was unlike any other garment he had seen in the Underland. It was like a bathrobe, but only long enough to cover his knees. Without underwear, most of its velveteen material lay directly on his skin, loose around him as he moved. Gregor walked out from behind the partition, barelegged and barefooted.

He felt vulnerable in front of the three of the closest people to him. He thought he looked silly, like the time his mom made him rent a tuxedo and go to the prom, even without a date. But Hazard, Howard, and Mareth all greeted him with true smiles.

"It suits you," Mareth said.

Howard nodded in assent, but Hazard scratched his head.

"Does it suggests youth and purity, in advance of a life begun anew?"

"Right now, it's suggesting that I steer clear of Ripred," Gregor said. "He'd laugh me out of town if he saw me now."

The small group all found that pretty funny. Knowing the experienced rat as they did, it was almost expected that he would be cracking wise to cover for his real feelings.

But when they arrived in the ceremony hall, he couldn't spot the rager's hulking form in any of the seats, although the gnawers were represented by a few reserved-looking rats and Lapblood. She lifted her snout in recognition as he entered.

On the other side of the hall, Luxa entered. They were supposed to advance in sync towards the stage. Normally, that would have been the hard part. But their eyes had instantly locked. Gregor couldn't understand it right away, but he felt entirely connected to the owner of those violet eyes. When she stepped, he stepped. He was hoping he was walking straight.

She was dressed in the same kind of robe as him, barefooted on the long carpet that had been laid out. Unlike the loud celebration that had taken place after the tribunal, the people here were doing nothing but singing the Chant in low tones.

 _For one and one is two._

The stairs were cold beneath his feet.

 _And two is one and one._

Gregor wondered if Luxa's parents has walked this same path, stood on the same stage.

 _So shall be joined this pair._

The distance between them grew smaller and smaller. He almost couldn't tell if he was walking or not. He could have been riding a cloud and been none the wiser.

 _The time for life anew has begun._

They met in the middle. He didn't realize how long they stood there staring at each other but Gregor eventually realized two things. The first was that Luxa's head was not adorned with a crown. The second was that he had no idea what face he had been making. It all felt unreal.

They joined hands, but crossing them so that their wrists touched. He could feel her palms, surprisingly hot to the touch. Her face was glowing pink with the flush of blood, but her smile was tight lipped and regal. Bare-armed, they held that crossed position for some time. The chant became louder and louder. Gregor fell deeper into Luxa's eyes, taken up in the sounds and the feeling.

The trance was broken for the both of them by a loud thunderclap going off behind their heads. They both snapped their heads to look, halfway to battle. He felt her brief panic just as she felt his in the way they pulled at each other. But the source of the noise was a large drum that had been hidden behind a floor-to-ceiling curtain. Along with what looked like a band of musicians.

The thunder-drum beat again. And then the rest of the musicians started to play, slowly. The crowd changed from the chant to a new song.

 _We see the twain holding here,_

 _With feeling on the tongue._

We see the twain holding fear,

 _And know they wish it begone._

Gregor knew the next step. He let go of his left hand, and Luxa positioned herself shoulder-to-shoulder with him, holding their right hands together loosely at shoulder-level. They were facing opposite directions now, but it was fine since they easily had each other in their sights. Gregor winked at Luxa over their hands, and noticed a brief flash of mirth.

 _They have sat in the pot,  
Now let them stir._

They begin to trot,  
Now blood shall whir.

They circled each other, linked by their hands and stepping lightly. It was unmistakably a dance, even though it was so neat and orderly. It was also a form of public witness to their marriage, so Gregor tried not to screw it up like any other of the dances. He didn't have to try hard. Touching her like this felt almost like telepathy. He was sure she could predict his movements too.

 _Let us hope their time endures.  
Let us accept what they cannot ensure._

There was the briefest hesitation within Luxa. The lines in the song seemed almost tailored to describe her own parents, married but killed far too early in their life. She stopped, and let go of his hand.

Gregor pivoted on one leg just as she did, and their left hands met in the same way that their right hands had. This time he was supposed to lead the two.

 _We quest for light, every one,  
We quest for that which shall not be undone._

Luxa had tears in her eyes, although her face wasn't all scrunched-up like somebody who was on the verge of sobbing. As they completed another twirl, he felt a drop running down his face. Was he crying, too?

 _And so it ends, the two as simple friends.  
And so it begins, life anew once again._

Gregor was the one that hesitated next. He wasn't sure why. Was now the time to get cold feet? No. Whatever this new life in the Underland would be, he had already accepted it. He had spent a long time wondering if he would always feel a gap inside of him. Luxa wasn't going to be able to fill it, but she could certainly help him. She had already done so much. His place was here, with her and Regalia.

The music stopped, with one last resonant drumbeat. With some amount of effort, they managed to let go and turn to the crowd, looking straight ahead. Their hands found each other again, although it wasn't part of the instructions that Gregor had been studying for days.

They bowed to the audience, in one of the few times royals in Regalia bowed to their subjects. The way Doros explained it, the ceremony was meant to focus on the to-be-weds as individuals. Hence, Luxa not even wearing her crown. As they came up out of the bow, the crowd rose and bowed back. Human, nibbler, gnawer, and even the fliers managed to fold their wings.

Everything after that was a rush again, just like after the trial. While the attendees were busy leaving through the main entrances, servants appeared from a service passageway. One of them holding a thick red rope stooped down to their ankles. When he came back up, he smiled apologetically.

Gregor looked down and realized why. The servant had tied one of their legs together. Complete with the bathrobes and their flushed skin, they must have looked like a sunburned couple who got roped into doing a three-legged race just before bedtime.

The thought made Gregor laugh. Luxa found herself cracking up too, even though she didn't know why yet.

"We really look weird, huh?"

"Marriage clothes are always unique, no matter the land," Luxa said. "You performed better than I hoped."

"Even I couldn't mess up a dance like that," Gregor said jokingly. "Not with the stakes."

About half of the group had made it out of the door by then. The servant's passageway was opened for them and they started down towards it, picking up the rhythm of sharing a leg pretty easily, holding on to each other for better balance.

"When does _this_ come off?" Gregor asked as they hopped awkwardly around a corner.

Luxa grinned, her face almost looking vampiric in the deep shadows of the hallway.

"Oh, that," she said, teasingly. "That comes off with the rest of it."

Gregor felt his persistent blush worsen- his eartips probably hot enough to boil. One of the servants accompanying them burst into a fit of coughing, having to excuse herself to laugh. Luxa giggled.

But the reference didn't just disappear. Ever since the bath, Gregor was feeling everything a lot more sharply. And now that the ceremony was done, his mind was starting to rush towards what would come after.

It didn't help that their bodies were already pressed together in the thin robes, or that they were generating quite a bit of heat as they put in twice the amount of work to move. Her comment about 'it all coming off later' had sent his mind into a whir, against his better judgment. He didn't know what else to think about.

Finally, a brighter light shone through an entranceway, and a pair of guards were holding the curtains back for them. They were back in the public area of the palace. Surprisingly, Doros was somehow waiting for him. Nerissa also manged to wander by just in time. She held Luxa's crown in her hand, placing it askew on her cousin's head.

"You do know my ways, dear Nerissa," Luxa said as she adjusted the crown. "I prefer to balance this for myself."

Doros didn't have a crown for Gregor, but he took a quick measurement with a length of tape.

"For your coronation, although they must first fabricate the crown."

"I guess I'm still not a king until then, even with the trial."

Luxa bumped his hip with hers.

"You are king enough in my eyes," she said. "That should keep us satisfied in the interim."

Gregor bumped her hip right back. Softly, of course, since their ankles were still joined together.

This last ceremony would take the least amount of time, and didn't even have a room assigned to it. They would exchange rings in front of the entrance to the Royal Chambers, and then everybody would go off to feast.

The little area in front of the chambers was packed, and the halls were lined in all directions with people trying to get a view. It really was as if everyone was here. Aurora held a position of honor closest to her bond, and all the present relatives nearby. But still, no Ripred in sight.

His absence didn't escape either of them, but they decided not to make a scene in front of the crowd. For all they knew, he could be listening or smelling from around a corner, uncomfortable with the idea of being there in person. Luxa knew Gregor would be willing to chase him down later to help her get the full story.

Until then, they would be in the moment.

Luxa had a ring ready, made of petrified wood and fitted to Gregor's measurements by Miravet herself. She reached into the single pocket on her robe and drew it, being sure to hold it so that the onlookers could get a good view of it. If wood was rare, it was even rarer to have a fossilized version of it.

Gregor likewise pulled a ring from his pocket. He noted that the robes were custom-tailored to have their pockets on opposite ends so that the wedded couple could reach them, despite having legs tied together.

His ring was actually his grandmother's. She had willed it to him. And despite her origins, it was actually pretty fancy. The ring was silver, and he had worked on it for hours before it looked perfect. Gold inlay criss-crossed it, but somehow remained flush with the surface. He held it as Luxa had, letting everyone see it.

Then they kneeled, and slid the rings onto each other's fingers. Gregor had enlisted his mom to secretly measure Luxa's ring finger, although he wasn't sure if keeping it hidden was necessary. For a moment, the ring seemed stuck on her finger, but she twisted her hand slightly and it went the rest of the way.

They rose, and displayed their hands to the crowd. The cheering started again, and the musicians started playing from somewhere far away. But before either of them could get caught up in the celebration, the stone doors are pushed open from the inside by the Royal Guard. The Chamber was ready.

Gregor looked at Luxa cautiously but she swung her joined leg lightly forward, genuinely smiling at him. He let a grin grow on his face. They climbed the stairs, supporting each other by habit, if not necessity.

Just before they crossed the threshold, Luxa turned to face the crowd one last time, hands clasped with Gregor. Most people had already begun the celebration, but Aurora still had her eyes on them, something seeming sad about her, although it was hard to say what.

But Aurora had nothing to say on that subject. She flapped a wing at them as if to send them off. Finally, they turned back to the room, and the stone doors were secured behind them, quietly grinding into place.

They were alone, and still words had yet to be exchanged. Gregor simply followed Luxa's lead when it came to walking. They carried on over the new carpets, past newly polished masonry. They reached the room that Gregor had last been in, a sort of antechamber. Beyond it, her bedroom.

Despite the events that had happened in the antechamber before, neither of them showed any sign of slowing down. They carried on right into her room proper. Without any of her assistants around, the rich surroundings had a haunted feel to them. Everything up until now had been perfect, like the kind of story you tell a child. But the glaring imperfection lay here, at the end.

Her room was fine, untouched by the crisis. Forest-green and deep-purple fabrics were all around the room, either as rugs or in the tapestries. Not being interfered with was not sufficient though. The situation felt wrong.

Even so, they were still heading to the only place one would consider. Her sheets were freshly laundered, the only clue being a slight scent of lavender. As they collapsed onto it, Gregor noted that the mattress was just right for him, firm but soft enough to relax. And plenty large. In fact, larger than any other bed he had been in.

Sitting up, he tugged at the red rope that still bound their legs.

"Well, unless this is your kind of thing, we might as well untie this."

Luxa lay on her side, but was flexible enough to tug at the knot. It came apart easily. She tossed it aside on her side-table, but quickly came back to looking at Gregor.

He was still sitting with a knee up, which made his robe drop low, giving Luxa a full view of his legs. The hair there wasn't a pale white like the body hair of the Regalians. She supposed it was yet another thing that had to do with the sun. And indeed, pale hair would look quite strange on his darker shade of skin. Differences and all, the way he was now seemed like the way he was meant to be.

"Is it hot in here?" He asked suddenly. "Ever since that bath, I've been feeling warm. What was in it?"

Luxa was also quite warmer than usual, but she was pretty sure the bath didn't have that much to do with it.

"Miravet told me that it was formed mainly from aromatics, and tea leaves. For whatever reason, my skin has been feverish ever since."

Gregor pressed his hand to her forehead, then to his. After several moments, it was clear that he had not been able to divine anything from it. He shrugged.

"It all feels the same to me."

Luxa devised a better solution. Sitting up, she brought her forehead to his, carefully, draping an arm across his shoulder.

They were very close now, eye-to-eye. Luxa saw herself flickering in the torchlight-shadows reflected therein.

"Feel you my heat?" she asked softly, but somehow the words came out with a certain raspy quality to them, as if there was a magick to them.

"I feel you," Gregor said. His voice had also changed. Whatever spell might have cast, it covered the both of them.

With eyes closed, their lips met, requiring only the most minor of adjustments between them.

Kissing was not in either of their domain of expertise. In fact, Gregor knew his record was in the single digits. But even with all that, it felt perfectly natural to be there with Luxa. They didn't need instructions or a stable of experience to call on.

The embrace deepened, and Gregor found himself supporting Luxa's neck with one hand while the other combed through her hair, sweeping it back through his fingers. Slowly, her back ended up on the bed, her legs folded up in the space between them. As Luxa's head settled on a pillow, the kiss naturally broke off. Gregor got out from over her, sitting up at her feet as they took in the sight of each other.

Luxa knew she might be looking like a 'mess', to borrow one of Gregor's words. She felt herself hotter than ever, and even the one place where they barely touched felt as if it was set aflame. Her face was no doubt deep red by now with the blush that had risen in her, and her hair was probably wild from Gregor's own work. But he did not look upon her with disgust.

Even though his hair was too short to be mussed and his skin dark enough to hide much of his blush, his eyes told everything she needed to know about his internal dishevelment, and his face was as expressive as ever. There was a tender look of love on his face, but also, hints of doubt.

"What ails you, Gregor, dearest?"

He rested his hands on her knees and she placed her own on top, reassuringly.

"I just wanted to be sure I was ready," he said.

She resisted the impulse to palm his groin to check for him. Luxa knew he was speaking in the wider sense.

"I see you as my true partner," she said, intuiting that he was looking for justifications. "The people have recognized you as a king. Our loved ones believe in our intentions."

Gregor nodded, his hands shifting a bit as he began to speak.

"I am absolutely humbled that how so many have accepted me," he replied. "And the idea of _us_ , too."

His eyes darted to the right, and then the left, as if he was looking for the correct phrase.

"I understand why it took so much ceremony and why there were so many rituals to get to here," Gregor said. "Even as I said the words, I knew they wouldn't be taken lightly. Maybe its taken me some time to really interpret it all."

Luxa nodded, surprised at how patient she could be, despite the aching need she had for Gregor, a need that had truly awakened here.

"We can repeat our oaths conversationally, if it would help you," Luxa said. "The way we did in the mine."

"Not all of the oaths," Gregor said, raising one hand in protest. "It's just one that's suddenly on my mind."

"The heir," Luxa guessed. "Our child."

"Yeah."

She had to admit, the words sounded grave even to her ears. She had known it was part of her duty, but lying in bed with Gregor above her made the concept intensely real. And in some ways, interfered with the very concept of love as a duty. She was here for more reasons than purely practical ones.

"I am for it," Luxa said. "I want your child."

Gregor gulped. Even filtered through so many layers of meaning, the words touched something primal in him.

"Not for the sake of duty, either," she said. "I want you to give me young because I love you, and because our future lies together."

The words steeled Gregor's conviction. He had his doubts about a lot of the things, their age, the time, the place. But he was no longer just himself. It was just as the wedding chant had said. Luxa and Gregor were one and one, talking here. But in publicly announcing their decision to marry, they had created the idea of 'two'. They would never be the same person, of course, but right now they were a lot closer together than ever before.

He had found a place. And he knew the path he wanted to walk. He and the Queen, keeping the peace and planting the seeds of the future. He had always wanted a kid, he realized. Someone to love and to raise, to inspire and protect. There was no one else he would share the rest of his life with, and that new child's life with, than Luxa.

"I love you," Gregor breathed. And then they both knew that it was time.

They had both secured their robes with the same kind of simple knot. It would hold in most cases, but was also easily undone if one knew where to pull.

Gregor found his fingers on her knot. Luxa had found it on his hip. They pulled at the same time, and their bodies were suddenly exposed to the air, and to each other.

He had only caught a glimpse of her body before, but now that it felt like they had all the time in the world, he didn't spend much time gawking. They didn't linger too long on the kiss this time, either. There were many more things to do.

The first beads of sweat broke out on Luxa's skin. There were too many new things for her to rely on any airs of nobility. Not that she was planning to hold anything in reserve now, in absolute privacy.

Her hand slid under Gregor's unfastened robe, feeling along the firm muscles of his neck and shoulder, her thumb tracing his collarbone as he kissed along her body.

She smelled sweet each time he ducked his head in to kiss her. First along her neck and then along her body.

Never mind what Stellovet had said about Luxa's physical charms. Gregor found himself going mad over every aspect of her. Beyond the things that had taken him from the beginning, her bright eyes and graceful airs, beyond her ready mind and dedicated temperament. Beyond the things his mind knew and loved and recognized, there stood the things his body craved.

Her body felt perfect to his hands. At first, caressing, lightly touching. But he felt it harder and harder to keep up the same level of restraint. His eyes saw the veins across her chest as a beautiful webwork of soft blue, blooming against the dusky rose of her flushed skin- creating delicate natural patterns that he wanted to inspect for the rest of his life. But for the time being, he was caught up in the experience. He replaced his questing hands on her breasts with his mouth.

Luxa gasped when his mouth closed on a peak. Gregor looked up, but she guided his head back down. He was bringing sensations out that she had never been able to achieve by herself, even knowing that her chest was especially sensitive. Gregor's ministrations were incredibly effective. She felt herself close to the threshold, but knew she could get no farther at this stage.

She cleared the robe from Gregor's shoulders, then arched her own back so that her robe could be cast to the side. As she did, she felt herself brush against him in the places where they were both the most sensitive. As she came back down, his manhood settled upon her stomach, and she felt a shiver pass down her spine as she looked down at it, a thing both known and unknown to her.

He moved to kiss her again, but she met him halfway, her legs now spread to either side of him as he sat. With an relaxed glance, she managed to climb into his lap, bringing their torsos close together, rubbing their lower selves together delightfully.

"I am told this method is easier," Luxa said. "At least for the first time."

Gregor nodded, dumbfounded. Whatever he had seen and heard and read before now, the physical experience was totally different. He didn't doubt that Luxa would know what was best for her.

As if to confirm this, she took hold of him, stroking just a few times to get a sense for it. Then she rose above him, using his shoulders for leverage. She kissed his forehead from above one last time, and he tongued a nipple, but it was all very temporary.

She positioned him beneath herself, pressing lightly into herself to begin. She took her time, lowering just enough, surrounding him with warmth and wet. They were so tightly pressed together that each pulsing heartbeat could be felt between them.

"Feel you my quim?" Luxa asked, her voice low with the sensation, her breath hot on Gregor's ears. "Every part of me hungers for you."

And then she let herself descend the rest of the way, her body already prepared for him. Even so, Luxa could not help but yelp as she hit the base and a shock passed through her. Just as she tried to move, she felt the wave break within her. She had crossed the threshold by the tiniest amount, her body flooding with feeling.

Gregor saw her eyes become unfocused, and nuzzled her neck, trying to provoke a response. Nothing. He squeezed a hand through the gap in their bodies and rubbed a gentle circle into her chest.

She came to soon after, still dazed.

"Was it good?" Gregor asked.

"The very best," she said, panting. But it hadn't been enough. She knew there were higher heights for herself, not to mention her partner's own enjoyment.

She began moving in earnest, Gregor supporting her as she rolled her hips back and forth, against his cadence. Moving together, it took very little time for Gregor to reach his own climax.

Luxa watched with some amount of smugness as Gregor had his mind blown, and found herself stimulated like never before as his length stirred deep within her, and then let loose his lifeseed. His eyes also became unfocused, and she could only find the sight amusing now that the tables had turned. Their tongues danced idly in the afterglow, but finally Luxa kissed him on the cheek and got up.

"Wha-" Gregor began to say as Luxa left the bed, but her purpose became crystal-clear. She entered a hand-stand, her toned legs open just wide enough for balance. Despite having the largest orgasm thus far in his life, Gregor was still held in rapture by Luxa, even if he didn't understand immediately. But when he saw a trickle run down her upside-down body, he understood it as yet another weird Regalia ritual- this time about fertility.

"Ah jeez," Gregor said, fondly. There were still plenty of things he had to learn.


	18. Chapter 18 : Hard to Kill

**Author's Note: The final 5 chapters of _Light and Victory_ will be published once a day**

* * *

 _She had asked him to go stargazing, so they headed off one night, finding a place suitably far away from the lights of the house. He laid the picnic blanket in the middle of a fallow field, and they laid on it, looking up at the cloudless night sky._

" _I don't really know any constellations," Gregor said. "Except a few stars that are useful for orientation."_

" _That is far more than I know," Luxa said. "They are a mystery to me."_

 _She had been reading his dad's science textbooks, so she was up-to-date on the basics of astronomy. But knowing the concept of a star was different from accepting them._

" _You're in luck tonight," Gregor said_

 _He pointed to one that was a little brighter than anything around it._

" _That's the North Star, Polaris," he explained. "It's not the brightest, but it basically lines up with the North Pole, so you can follow it like a compass."_

 _She tracked his finger to the star, and tried to get a fix on it._

" _I know now what a light-year is," Luxa said softly, "Know you the distance from Polaris?"_

" _Nope. I bet my dad would know, but he'll be in bed by the time we get back home."_

" _Perhaps it would be better not to know."_

" _Why do you say that?"_

" _I doubt I shall ever visit a star."_

"Well... The Sun not included, I think the nearest star is something like 4 to 5 light-years away."

" _The distance is incomparable," she said. "I'd prefer not to imagine it."_

" _Why not?"_

" _It seems too... lonely."_

" _The star?"_

" _In Regalia, I knew there was another world above us, filled with people. But in the Overland, you do not know what lies above you, other than infinity."_

" _If they weren't pulling my chain back at the clinic, I'm pretty sure there are other people somewhere out there," Gregor joked._

" _All the worse. Hidden secret or not, Overlanders are the only ones who share the Sun. Even the nearest possible light-rays are 5 years distanced."_

" _That might be true," Gregor said. "But our sun could be a star for someone else far away, the same way their sun is just a star to us."_

" _Just a star," Luxa echoed. "As if it is such a small thing."_

" _I'm sure it can mean a lot more than that."_

" _It means much to me," she said. "You know how special light is."_

 _consider this a line break_

Gregor dropped the bottle, watching the silk it was tied to flared out, slowing its descent.

"One, two, three," Set counted out, carefully squeaking each secound. He stopped when they heard a distant _tink_ of glass touching stone.

"Did it break?" Gregor asked.

A massive pale-brown bat appeared over the ramparts of the wall, holding the silk bundle in his mouth. Danging from its ties, the bottle was unbroken.

"Yes!" Set exclaimed, practically backflipping with excitement. "We have the coefficient!"

Gregor took the silk bundle from the bat's mouth.

"Thanks, Hyperion," he said, taking a closer look at the bottle and sighing.

"Are you displeased?" Hyperion asked, his voice strangely high-pitched for a male bat.

"No, this is great," Gregor said, trying to hide the disappointment that had come upon him.

"We have just adapted the Overlander concept of a parachute to Regalia," Set said. "Imagine the safety that it could bring."

Gregor tried to smile, but it was hard, even in front of the flier and nibbler he had formed a quick rapport with in the three weeks since arriving. He wasn't sure what felt so wrong, but the cloud did not pass, even when he used all of his usual methods to adjust his feelings.

He knew he should be feeling happy, with so many of his wishes becoming true, but after looking at the bottle, the malaise had come on stronger.

"What is wrong?"

"I don't know, Set," Gregor said, pulling back. "But let's just focus on working this into production for now."

He had spent the better part of two weeks adapting to the role of a King of Regalia, insofar as he could help. Ripred had been right when he predicted that Luxa would take most of the work onto herself. Gregor knew she was the kind of person who would always bear as much as she could by herself. He was like that himself, and the unbalanced division of labor was probably at the root of his bad mood.

Another reason was the conspicuous absence of Ripred, the very gnawer who had sarcastically suggested he start developing parachutes. Gregor had started the project half-jokingly, hoping that the rager would finally show himself halfway through, and rib Gregor about taking the suggestion seriously.

But it had been three weeks and no one had spotted Ripred since the tribunal had approved Gregor to marry Luxa. And with this final test done, the project had become too serious to keep dreaming about Ripred coming out of nowhere to laugh at it.

"I will note our findings when I return to Regalia," Set said helpfully. "With the help of a spinner, we could obtain full-size prototypes by the end of the day."

"Go ahead," Gregor said. "If you and Hyperion want to get back to town by mealtime, you'd have to start now."

"You will find another way back again?" Hyperion asked. "The nibbler weighs very little, it is hardly anything to carry you both."

"I won't be far behind," Gregor said. "Any one of _those guys_ should have room."

The three of them took a knowing glance at the squad of the Royal Guard who followed Gregor at all times. They seemed to always be flying patrols around him, and one flier would always keep their back clear in case they had to evacuate someone.

Hyperion was used to Gregor's occasional moods by now, and stooped to let Set up without further protest.

"Fly you high," he said to the pair as they took off. When you took Doros into account as well, Gregor thought he looked to be amassing a diverse bunch of personal assistants. And just like Set and Doros, it was circumstance that had brought Hyperion to him. The flier's previous bond was an athlete, a woman who had sexcelled at the ball-game.

As such a well-known pair, Hyperion and his bond were immediately accepted for duty as one of The Ten of Troy. She was the only other survivor of the mission Gregor had led against the cutters, but she was paralyzed from the neck down from a rockslide. She had asked Hyperion to serve Gregor, since there was no way she was going to be able to fly again. And for some reason, Hyperion had accepted.

 _Even though I was the one who got his bond paralyzed,_ Gregor thought.

He had taken to jogging along the long wall that served as the barrier between the rest of the Underland and the fields of Regalia. He could look to his right each time he ran and see the plants growing under gaslight, witness the soil being healed and bringing new life. It kept the worst of his feelings out of his mind.

Even with his guards following closely, and having to pass through watch-towers on his way across the wall, it was the closest he got to solitude, in between his pet projects and the larger work of keeping Regalia protected and productive. To his horror, he was starting to be drawn into what was called 'politicking' in Regalia and what he knew as 'drama' at home. Such and such minister was saying so-and-so and doing blah-blah-blah. He was starting to keep track of it, unconsciously. With no active war, 'politicking' often came before questions of duty to the city and valuing true service. It was a let-down to find out that Regalia could be just as shallow as the Overland in some places.

He was still working on the reasons for his mood by the time he had slowed, panting, at the end of the wall. He felt alive, sure, but the moment he called for a bat, he would be heading back into the city, to take on the jobs that Luxa trusted him with. Also known as the jobs that were too important for non-royals, but inconsequential enough to avoid her full attention.

But just before he asked a flier if he could catch a ride, he saw the now-familiar snout of a digger as it poked its head out of a tunnel at ground level. Apparently convinced that the scene was safe, it scrambled up out of the hole, revealing the person riding on its back.

"Hazard!" Gregor called, recognizing the shoulder-length mop of black hair easily.

Hazard somehow found tiny handholds in the wall, scaling it like some kind of monkey with his wiry limbs. As Gregor clasped hands with him, he could feel the toughened pads on the teen's hands that showed the practice it had taken.

"I hope you didn't show up just to show off your climbing skills," Gregor said. "I know you're the best around."

Hazard grinned bashfully. It was one of the things he took pride on.

"Of course not, Gregor. I came to ask you a favor."

"A favor?"

 _Rare for someone to ask me a favor. Unless you count missions and quests as favors, in which case I've got plenty._

"It is a serious request," Hazard said. "I know that you must visit the Overland at intervals, such as today. I wished to attend alongside you."

Gregor nodded. He didn't think that would be a problem, if he called ahead.

"But that is not all," Hazard said. "I... I would also ask another favor from you."

"Go ahead," Gregor said, "I'm not doing much, anyway."

Hazard pursed his lips, like he was deciding, but he quickly found his words.

"I would also ask for your help in finding my grandfather, the one in the Overland."

consider this a linebreak

The search hadn't taken long at all. First, the Organization narrowed all missing person's reports from the tri-state area down to the women. Then they selected those who went missing within a few years of Hazard's birth. The hardest part came next. Gregor scrolled through the old pictures of the lost women with Hazard, more than a dozen smiling faces of varying ages and types. The only thing they shared outside of the sex on their birth certificate was that they were all still mysteriously lost, nearly two decades after they disappeared.

It wasn't helping Gregor's mood to think that even if Hazard recognized one of the images, it would only be confirming a death among the already lost. Like anyone posing for a photo, the women were smiling, sometimes cropped out of a group picture, a loved one's disembodied arms around their shoulders, or haunted by the edges of someone else's happy face.

Hazard recognized one of those photos almost instantly, a woman with olive skin and emerald eyes. Gregor could make out the border of a 'Happy 21st' placard somewhere behind her, a birthday hat nestled on top of her long black curls. The resemblance to Hazard was unmistakable.

Gregor called it in to Frank, and Frank answered back quickly with an address and room number for the woman's father, and thus Hazard's last living relative.

"It's really okay?" Gregor asked. "I thought you'd need some convincing to bring another guy up here."

"It's a special circumstance," Frank had said, and left it at that. Gregor couldn't help but wonder what the circumstance could be.

The car dropped them off outside a nursing home. In fact, it was the very same one his grandmother had spent the last years of her life in. His parents had worked hard to find a place near enough to visit while still providing good care. Gregor had been there several times, so he knew exactly how to get to the room number.

"This is where you keep the aged?" Hazard asked, squinting as the dusky evening passed into the bright fluorescents of the hallways.

"It's more complicated than that, but you're not that far off."

Up two flights of stairs, they finally reached the door. Gregor paused there.

"If you want to visit alone-"

"No, please," Hazard said, and Gregor saw the vulnerability of youth still in the teen. Like Luxa, there was something of orphanhood still there, even after childhood.

"Sure thing," Gregor said, and knocked.

A voice asked them to come in, and there wasn't space for introductions once the man saw Hazard. The man was old and worn, enough to need an oxygen tank plugged up into his nose. But his eyes still worked well enough.

"I know you," the man said, his breath dry and his voice hoarse. "I know you."

Hazard stepped forward.

"You may be my grandfather," he said.

"My mother's father."

The man lying in bed quickly turned down the volume on his T.V set.

" _Que?_ " He asked. " _Un nieto?_ No, that's not possible."

Hazard took a seat by the bedside.

"My name is Hazard. I am seventeen. My mother once lived in New York. She told me that she lived here with her father."

Hazard's even, neutral tone seemed effortless, but Gregor could tell the teen was unsure of himself. His hands wrung each other in his lap.

But the man reached his hand out to Hazard, tears appearing in his eyes.

"I believe you. You might think it is old-age," the man said, but he knocked a knuckle against his skull. "My mind is still here. It does not seem so long ago that I forced myself accept that she was gone."

"Gone."

"My own _hijita_ isn't totally disappeared, not like I thought. I thought I would die alone in this little room and her memory would go with me."

Hazard grasped his grandfather's hands between his own.

" _Mi nieto,_ " he said. "My own grandson, when I thought that I had absolutely no family left. When I thought she had died painfully in some dark place somewhere. She was the sweetest child, and became such a wonderful woman, just like her mother, God rest her soul."

The man must have noticed Hazard react, because he asked a more pointed question.

"Hazard, _querido,_ please tell me. Was your mother happy? My little girl?"

Hazard closed his eyes, trying hard to retrieve the memories. Gregor knew he had been afraid of losing them.

"She loved me and my father, I know. And we loved her just as much. But she also loved you and her home, as well."

Gregor saw Hazard bite his tongue to stop the rest of the words coming out.

 _Because she wanted to return home so much, she stumbled across lethal flies in her haste and died, with Hazard and Frill as the only witnesses._

"I know she is- gone," the man said haltingly. " _Muerto._ But how did it happen? Did she hurt?"

"No," Hazard said. "She caught a pestilence that quickly put her to sleep."

"And your father? Is he still alive?"

Hazard shook his head, his eyes squinting shut.

And suddenly, the two were embracing as if they hadn't been strangers just a few minutes ago. It was an incredible act of catharsis. They were both crying, with Hazard practically sobbing. He had lost so many members of his family, too many people that he had loved. To suddenly gain a new family member was too much.

Gregor felt like he had to step out, or else he might start crying too. But out in the hall, a passing nurse came in to remind him that visiting hours were ending very soon for those without a pass. Hazard had absolutely no identification, with this being a surprise visit. He wouldn't be able to be approved if it came down to it.

Taking a deep breath, he headed back in.

The scene had played itself out. Hazard was left hiccuping while his grandfather patted his back with wizened hands.

"Visiting hours are almost over," Gregor said. "You can probably hang out for longer, but..."

"I am not bothered," Hazard said, wiping his face with the sleeve of a sweatshirt. "I am sure that I can visit again."

The grandfather looked over Hazard's back at Gregor, his eyes clearly trying to communicate. A warning? Danger?

"Hazard, please, feel free to freshen up before you leave," he said. "The sink has hot water, you just need to wait for it."

Hazard disappeared into the sizable bathroom, the door closing behind him. His grandfather didn't move until he heard water flowing into the sink. Then he gestured for Gregor to come to the bedside.

"You look like a true friend to him," he said. "If so, you must keep a secret until the time is right."

Gregor nodded, solemnly. He had an idea of what it might be, looking at the oxygen tank and the bedside table covered in pill-bottles.

"The secret is that he was very lucky to find me on one of my good days. I'm on hospice care right now."

Hearing the words _hospice_ , Gregor's stomach plummeted. He had been locked up in juvenile detention when his own grandparent had gone into hospice care. The extension on his sentence had gone through the day he got the letter from his parents explaining what hospice meant for Grandma (even though he already knew). It meant that there was nothing else the doctors could do except make the last days of her life better.

"Lung cancer," the man said stolidly, and then coughed, as if naming it had made it worse. "I've outlived about three of their best estimates, but I think this last doctor actually got the guess right. I'm not making it to April."

"Wait," Gregor said, but the man shook his head. The sink was off, so there was no longer any cover for their words.

Hazard spoke with his grandfather for a while longer, but he started yawning so hard that he couldn't possibly ignore it. After a farewell hug, Hazard had to leave, promising that he would come to visit as often as he could, so that he could learn more about his family.

Gregor was torn up with guilt the entire way back. For some crazy reason, Hazard's long-lost grandfather did not want to let his terminal illness be known. How could someone do that to family? Trying to surprise them with a death he saw coming seemed like a weird thing to do. That made Gregor doubly weird for keeping the secret.

Hazard kept pestering him for information on various things he saw out the window, but he was otherwise taking all of the new reveals totally in stride. Even in Central Park, without the enclosure of a car, he was soberly observing all of it.

They stopped just short of the entrance to let two dog walkers finish their conversation and move on out of sight. Hazard observed the dogs as they postured for some while, but Gregor saw that it didn't hold his attention for long. He was still thinking about his grandpa.

"Hey..." Gregor found himself saying.

"Yes?" Hazard asked, still too busy observing to fully commit.

It was the perfect chance to stop himself before he told Hazard a truth he probably would not want to hear about his grandfather.

"About your grandpa..."

 _Jeez, what is wrong with me today?_

Hazard looked worried. After seeing that, Gregor knew that he had to be entirely truthful, even if the grandpa had an issue with it.

But before he could break his silent promise, Hazard's worry seemed to ratchet up a few notches. Gregor followed his gaze to see a horde of cockroaches gather from the bushes and form in front of the gate, the little tiny bugs, not the 'beeg' kind.

The dogs started barking like crazy, giving their owners another reason to move away.

"This city, man," one of them mused as they passed Gregor.

The cockroaches disappeared before a crowd could form, giving Hazard and Gregor a window of opportunity to get under the slab and get through the door and back down into the Underland.

And even though the coordinated swarm of cockroaches should have been a giveaway, Gregor was still a little startled when he saw a crawler waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

"Greetings, crawler," Gregor managed to say.

"Good tidings, I bring, good tidings. Pleased I am to see you again, Gregor, pleased."

Only one crawler could even think of being on a first-name basis with him.

"Temp?" Gregor asked. "Oh man, how have you been? There's been no reports."

Hazard bowed, and started clacking around in Crawler, his gift for languages well-received there. He and Temp were instantly connected, transferring information like two machines.

"The crawlers have been totally engaged in fighting the cutters. Too busy or too far away to even send a messenger."

"Much time, a message costs, much time."

"And how have you fared?" Gregor asked. "Let me know if we can do anything to help."

Temp dipped his antennae respectfully, but Hazard's reaction was surprisingly uncouth, almost bursting out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Gregor asked. "We're all in this together."

"The crawlers do not need help." Hazard wiped a tear of mirth away. "Just yesterday, the remainder of the cutter army was encircled and eliminated by Temp's group."

Temp grumbled a little, but the determined way he was standing was not exactly humble.

"What?" Gregor couldn't believe it. "How's that even possible?"

"Hard to kill, we are," Temp said gravely.

"Hard to kill."


	19. Chapter 19 : Resolve

Hazard took advantage of Temp's presence as both discussion partner and informant, relaying information in bursts to Luxa and Gregor.

The well-respected crawler had been flown in secrecy to Regalia with Hyperion, and Luxa had been summoned to hear his testimony in the strategy room. She had completely abandoned her previous task, as she knew Temp would have some very important things to say. He began with the unbelievable tale of just how the crawlers had managed to defeat a numerically superior enemy.

"I could have expected your well-used tactic of strike-and-flee," Luxa said. "But you took it further and drew the cutters into a trap in your lands."

"Much time, it took, much time."

"We honor your sacrifice, all the more because it required much planning beforehand. The cutters needed to believe they required their full strength to defeat you. I know it is not in your nature to directly engage in such a way."

Luxa knew the crawlers were capable of bravery when the situation called for it. And unbeknownst to her until the surprise arrival of Temp, the crawlers had been fighting for dozens of days straight.

The Flood Gambit under Troy had barely worked through the skill of Gregor and Aurora, and even then all of the effort and sacrifice could only destroy one nest. Out of a dozen cutter legions, Temp had just revealed that only half of them were engaged and destroyed at Troy.

But rather than wait for the cutters to recover from the defeat, the crawlers had decided to provoke the survivors into attack, to make another devastating blow.

"No peace, while still they still fight, no peace."

"Are they done fighting, then?" Gregor casually asked. _Too_ casually, to Luxa's ears, as if he was trying to hide his concern.

Hazard and Temp went into another intense series of questions and answers, clicking rapidly. Hazard's face grew paler with each additional question.

"The crawlers found where the cutters keep their queens. They're already on the way to destroy them, too."

"Wait, all of their queens?" Gregor asked. "Isn't that going to make them extinct?"

Luxa could tell he was still guilty about his valiant acts at Troy, even though he himself had said it was necessary.

"Surely not all of them," she found herself saying coldly. "The villains must have a hidden refuge somewhere. But the loss will be instructive to what survivors keep their time."

"No more, the cutters will be, no more," Temp corrected her.

Hazard seconded that. "The diggers and crawlers have been observing the deep ways where the cutters travel. There are not many nests, and only one place where the youngest of their drones march from."

"That nest has to be where the army is bred," Gregor said, standing to search the map table for its location. "Where is it?"

"In Crawler, the word means something like mouth. But larger."

"The Maw," Luxa said. "I have seen it on maps of the Jungle."

She helped Gregor pick out the right scroll. He had been close to finding it alone, but he was still unfamiliar with the reference system.

"Thanks, Lulu."

"Any time, dearest."

Gregor had come up with 'Lulu' not too long ago, and Luxa had been feeling the pressure to invent with an effective pet name to match hers ever since. He knew the effect it had on her, since he was still grinning after a few moments struggling with the grid system, trying to find the landmark.

Luxa flipped the parchment he was looking at upside down, and pointed out a dark black circle. It was very close to the source of the foul-water streams. The vulcanic heat probably kept the eggs and the hatchlings nice and safe, and the water was probably not toxic in the small amounts that the cutters needed. They could have lived in alone in peace and plenty there, but it seemed that it was not to be.

"It seems the opposite of your previous heroics, Temp," Luxa said. "This new attack on an enemy with nearly every advantage."

"Their plan, includes no assault, their plan."

Hazard helped expand what Temp meant again, but he looked even further put off by it than Gregor.

"The crawlers plan to dig an pathway from the vulcanic spring to the rim. In fact, they started at least a week ago, separate from Temp's group."

The group all had their own internal reactions to the news. Gregor and Hazard were clearly appalled. Temp was nervous and shameful.

"We've got to stop them," Gregor said. "The cutters have totally given up on the war out here. No one's seen them for weeks."

"We do not know that for certain," Luxa said. "I am not so concerned if the crawlers wish to have their revenge."

"Really? We don't know anything about the cutters. Them not fighting could be like-" Gregor stopped and carefully thought of his next words. "This could be the closest they can get to surrendering and deciding to leave us in peace. If we attacked them unprovoked, it could ruin any chance of that."

 _He may be right. But if he is not, we are allowing the enemy to feed on our weakness._

"It is much to wager," she said.

"For the cutters and for the rest of us," Hazard said. "But a decision has to be made. Whatever the consequence, we cannot allow it to occur because of inaction."

"Mercy, we might show, Mercy."

Hazard explained Temp's words in further depth.

"If it must be so, the crawlers can be victorious by themselves. But Temp believes that we may be able to stop the fighting by negotiating directly with the cutter queens."

"Is such a thing possible?"

"We have to try," Gregor answered first. Luxa had already decided she could settle for an attempt at peace. If it failed, she would bear responsibility for what came after.

"It will take at least a day to confer with the council and determine the terms of a treaty," she said. "If such a thing is possible."

"That's going to take too long," Gregor said morosely. "Most of those guys won't even show up until halfway through the day. And then getting them to agree will take the rest of it. By the time fliers manage to get themselves in the air, it'll be too late."

She knew he was right, at least on the surface. But the details were important in this matter.

"How judge you the journey, Aurora?"

"From Regalia to Tantalus is not a journey easily embarked upon. To go even further and reach the Maw without rest, a flier would have to be strong, in body and in mind."

 _Far too long to waste time following the voluntary rules I give myself._

Luxa looked away from the map and to Gregor, who appeared to be anxious. She did not expect that from him, at least not at the moment. At times of crisis like this, he typically was worried, but otherwise eager to act. In fact, she had been expecting him to announce a rash plan of action, but some unseen obstacle was holding him back.

"We may send an envoy ahead of our peace-making flight," she said, looking meaningfully at him. "Without Ripred, I know not of any one person who could be as credible."

Gregor caught on quickly.

"You can't get much more credible than royals," he said. "But if I stay here instead of you to get the council involved, it'll probably take twice as long, at which point the question of treaties would be moot."

"As they often are with one's home submerged in toxic waters," Aurora murmured. "Alacrity is key here."

"The guards will have to attend alongside you," Luxa said. "But if we get a message to the captain, he might prepare a flight that will depart at the beginning of first shift."

Luxa saw Gregor check his wrist, although it was bare. He stuck his head out of a door, looking for the Time Tower.

"First shift is perhaps 9 hours from now, if we are quick with the preparations."

Gregor nodded.

"Then I better get started."

The regular smile of confidence was there now. With a task to do, a job worth doing, he seemed a different person. Maybe it really was the threat of death that he was drawn towards. Or, more likely, he had defined himself by self-sacrifice. After his insistence on facing the nephroideans, Luxa would never again challenge Gregor's apparent search for meaning through danger. In a sense, it was the mirror of her own drive. To deny it would be to deny herself.

"See you when I see you," she said to him as he left the room hurriedly.

"When else would you?" he called back, his voice already faint with distance. It was a stupid thing thing they said sometimes, but she supposed stupid things were as natural as the rest of what they shared.

Knowing that her own work would also require haste, Luxa set about setting the groundwork for what she hoped would be the first treaty with the cutters, as foolish as it would have sounded to Solovet or even her parents.

* * *

Gregor opened the door to the workshop, stepping gingerly over the sleeping form of Doros. The parachute must have taken all night to build.

Set was snoring, his little chest rising and falling. Gregor felt bad about it, but he had to wake him up. Lightly poking him hadn't seemed to work, so he eventually just started shaking the little mouse.

"WHAAAA" Set squeaked, springing up a few feet in the air and landing in a jumble.

"Sorry," Gregor apologized. "But I had to know for sure. Is it ready to go?"

Set dragged the parachute pack out by a strap.

"It seemed somewhat oversized, but the mathematics are correct. Doros folded it for storage in just the way you instructed."

Gregor took at look at the pack. It certainly was large, larger than the ones he knew from back home. But it would have to work. If it did, Doros and Set were in for some major accolades. If it didn't, Hyperion would catch him before he hit the bottom of the Maw.

"Tell Doros thanks when he wakes up," Gregor said. Set nodded solemnly. "Same goes for you. A real lifesaver."

Hyperion was waiting outside, along with about a dozen guards. Believe it or not, but that was as many as the captain could scrounge up on short notice. Although they followed their King's instructions (as a matter of politeness or respect), their real commander was the captain. In a similar sense to how a president couldn't just boss the Secret Service around. His guards were for his protection, not his private military.

As they got into the air, Gregor not that there were thirteen of them flying in two groups, one in front and one behind Gregor. They wouldn't be much of an army by numberss, even if Gregor was the warmongering type.

They weren't the only things that were somewhat meager in the circumstances. Gregor had his sword and his cuirass, but had left a lot of his armor behind. Hyperion had insisted that the weight didn't matter, but Gregor knew the chainmail would just get tangled in close-quarters with the cutters if things came down to a fight.

He had also brought along Mr. Cormaci's weapons from that long-distant war. The knife and submachinegun had become a security blanket, along with the pistol that he always carried. The concept of his armament was so beyond the pale here that even their somewhat limited capabilities could alter entire battles. He just hoped that his arrival would stop the fighting, without having to resort to violence.

Could the ants here even recognize the concepts of people or peace? He could only find out when he showed up, hours from now. He willed himself to lie still and focus on the plan.

First, getting the crawlers to stop fighting. Just asking would probably do it. Then, trying to get a view on the cutter queen at the bottom of the Maw. If Gregor could open up a line of communication, he would immediately start negotiating. First for an armistice, but then trying to convince them to meet somewhere to create a treaty with all of the groups that had been involved in the on-again-off-again war.

If he failed, the crawlers would exterminate the cutters, sending them to the Uncharted Lands, no mater how you defined the term. Thinking about the stakes didn't help his mood any.

It helped pass the time though, because they soon passed over the Arch of Tantalus. A few fliers had to land there, exhausted and unsure of where the next landing zone would be. At the rate the escorts were dropping for rests, He and Hyperion would arrive at the Maw without any backup. As if he needed any more ways to look bad in front of the crawlers. He was responsible for the last flood, but now he was going to show up and act like it wasn't okay to use a similar technique.

 _Maybe they wouldn't call me 'The Victorious' if they knew how many fights I've lost inside my head._


	20. Chapter 20 : Seven Virtues, Seven Sins

There was no way to miss the Maw. Whatever had caused the giant hole in the dense overgrowth of the Jungle had to have been gigantic. The volcanic light from the streams was strong, so close to the source, but it barely outlined the rim of it.

But in his mind, he could sound-sense thousands of crawlers working like an assembly line in reverse. Each large cockroach would pick a clod of earth, then get in a line to stack the dirt and rocks as far away from the Maw as possible. Once the flooding started, the crawlers did not want their work to be reversed easily.

Gregor managed to locate someone that he thought was the leader, one of the few crawlers that was not actively digging, instead conferring with a separate stream of messengers.

"Greetings," Gregor called to the cockroach. "I'm Gregor the-"

"Know us your name, know us."

"Oh," Gregor said. It was good to find someone who could skip the niceties.

"Your purpose, we know too, your purpose."

"Then you know I think you're making a mistake here. Whatever's down there might be all that's left of the cutters."

"And so hope we that their killing shall end, so hope we."

That threw Gregor for a loop. He didn't know that Temp had been something of a bleeding-heart on the ant issue. These crawlers seemed to be dedicated to killing off all the cutters.

"Would you consider giving peace a chance?" Gregor asked. "I want to try making contact with the queen here."

In the darkness the crawler fanned his antennae, wriggling slightly as he tried to think. Temp had always appeared to be smarter than average, but whoever this crawler was, he seemed like he operated at an even higher level.

"Eternally, we fight, eternally," the crawler said eventually. "Never seen, peace with cutters, never seen."

"If you really feel that peace cannot exist, I can't stop you," Gregor said. "But if you continue this plan, you're going to guarantee that peace will never exist. In fact, you will become the new Killers of the Underland."

The crawler gave a worried chirp, but had a quick rebuttal.

"Different, the circumstances are, different."

The cockroach had a point. Sandwich had poisoned the diggers just to get their land. The crawlers here were retaliating and, in their minds, were ensuring peace.

"When's the last time the gnawers invaded your lands? Or when have the spinners recently hunted your ancient ones for sport?"

Silence, except for the clicking of crawlers.

"More than ten years, and only because of the treaty we all worked on together. If the war had continued, instead of ending through mutual agreement, don't you think a lot more would be dead today?"

Gregor knew he had hit gold on this one, because the crawler-in-command suddenly became a lot less energetic.

"The cutters created that peace by pressuring the gnawers to form a pact," he reasoned. "Whatever happened during the Poison invasions, the cutters shared a hand in bringing the rest of us together. I need to know what was going on inside their heads. I will not condone the destruction of the last cutter nest without having at least some chance to attempt contact with the ones who helped bring peace between us all."

The crawler bowed in submission.

"True, you speak, true. We shall stop the digging, we shall. Only for a moment, shall we rest, only for a moment. Yet they shall continue, the fighting soldiers. they shall continue."

Gregor figured that was a fair deal. Calling a one-sided ceasefire against the cutters would be like laying limp during a wrestling match. The struggle had to continue until the cutters changed their course first.

"Hyperion!" Gregor called, taking a running leap into the air.

The brown bat dove gracefully to catch him and they quickly started a cautious spiral down the Maw. The interior was far rougher than one would expect from its circular shape. It was clear that this was no water-worn tube of stone like those around Troy. With the added texture of the rock, the ants and cockroaches could crawl just as they did on flat ground- any which direction in the tube.

All around them, vicious close-quarters battles were playing out. The cutters naturally had the advantage, easily crushing cockroaches in powerful jaws, poisoning those who managed to escape. But the crawlers fighting here knew that they didn't have to win. They just had to stall as long as possible for the digging crews.

To that end, they would take long hops, their wings buzzing for flight as they evaded situations and kept groups of cutters chasing them. Hyperion had to pull some pretty crazy maneuvers to keep clear of flying crawlers, some of whom were attached by a pair of jaws to a writhing cutter.

Gregor had his submachinegun out and ready, but the circumstances were too wild and unpredictable to fire, especially because the corpses of the slain were sometimes indistinguishable from those on the move. The way the bodies fell down a seemingly endless hole reminded him of his fever-nightmare with quicksand made out of the dead.

"Wait, Hyperion, we need to go back up," he said suddenly, coming to a realization.

"We must?" Hyperion asked, skeptical.

"I have a tube full of chemicals that should interfere with how cutters communicate. If we go from the top-down, we'll get better coverage."

Hyperion bought the excuse and they quickly ascended, although the effort clearly was wearing on the bat. A layer of sweat was starting to form on his wings, and Gregor could see his breath as hot puffs of air.

Gregor unscrewed the vial, just smaller than a water bottle, and upended it above the Maw while Hyperion completed one lazy orbit. It smelled like nothing to him, but Gregor hoped that it would be entirely different to the ants, who relied on scent trails and the like to navigate and coordinate. As it fell through the air, the liquid would get caught in the air currents of the deep vertical shaft. spreading everywhere.

It had an instant effect below, Gregor could tell. Something about the sounds of battle had changed. Still terrible, but it seemed far slower.

Even though the crawlers seemed to be catching a lucky break, no such luck existed for Hyperion, whose exhaustion had finally caught up with him.

"Overlander..." he panted. "I must rest."

"Don't worry about it," Gregor returned. "I think I've got this from here. Rest up and come get me later. If any crawler needs help, you should probably prioritize them first."

And with that, he jumped off Hyperion's back, angling to fall feet-first through the center of the Maw. He had explained his parachute to the flier, but this would be the first actual trial run with a living user.

The wind currents were calm, although gravity was just as strong as ever. The wind struck him in the face with extra force thanks to the smooth metal of his armor, giving him yet another reason to keep his eyes closed.

Echolocation was good enough to see, as he first battered his way through the highest part of the Maw, where the battle could still continue. But as Gregor continued dropping, he could see the true chaos that had been unleashed by the vial of insect pheromones.

Without an enemy, the cutters were tearing each other apart on the walls, careening in all directions like bumper cars. Some of the nest was open to the tunnel, with each level storing indecipherable mixes of shapes and lines. Some of the shapes he saw in his head reminded him of the swollen mutated shiners, others were tessellated like honeycombs.

Gregor pulled the snaps open on his pack, and the parachute flared out, dragging him up a little bit but otherwise working exactly as designed. His speed of descent slowed way, way down. If the ants hadn't been busy fighting each other, they probably could have snagged him with enough coordination.

But as it was, he was mostly left alone. Maybe for the worst. If he wasn't being attacked, did it mean that he had overshot the location of the Queen? He had just assumed that it would be at the very bottom of the Maw, just in the same way that the High Hall was at the very top of the palace in Regalia. Maybe it wasn't where the queen lived, but you had a pretty good chance of running into her there, a mix of comfort, security, and access.

His idle drifting downward was interrupted by the sudden collision of a cutter corpse dropping from above into his parachute. It was too fast to dodge, and the cords got tangled from the impact, making his dome-shaped chute into a boot-shaped bundle that flapped loosely in the wind.

 _Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_.

The situation was somewhat out of his control. Thanks to a design limitation, he couldn't even reach up to the chute to free the obstruction. He would just have to hope there wasn't too much space between him and the floor of the Maw.

Thankfully, he could hear it approaching beneath him. He was relieved, but when he thought about what the floor must be, his stomach nearly turned. He would be crashing into a pile of bodies at high speed.

He wanted to close his eyes before impact, but they had already been shut. He couldn't avoid the sound of his body as it landed crunchily into the war-dead. Bug guts split open across him, coating him in sticky mucus-like layers of grit and slime.

The Cormaci knife cut the parachute away from him in disgust, and he tried his best to clear the barrel of the old submachinegun. A malfunction was the last thing he wanted.

The helmet had kept his face mostly clear of innards, so Gregor slowly opened his eyes, careful to note any stinging from caustic chemicals. But there was none, only a large surprise. A tunnel entrance was right by him, the only one on this lowest level, the opening large and tall enough to fit two eighteen-wheelers side-by-side. And more than its size, there was a warm yellow light coming from it.

Wary for traps, Gregor approached the tunnel, but it seemed clear. He sensed the area ahead with his echolocation, then double-checked with this eyes, checking each corner carefully to make sure he wouldn't be ambushed at short range.

The tunnel let out into a large, steamy room. The vapor made it difficult both to see and to try and sense what was within. Gregor thought he saw shapes moving, but it was often just steam shifting when he stopped to examine it. But despite what his sight and hearing told him, the area did not feel abandoned.

Suddenly, Gregor felt a prickle at his neck. In his mind's eye he saw the thick pincers of a larger cutter around him. When he turned his head to look, he realized that it was no illusion.

The thick guillotine of a giant ant's pincers pressed against his neck.

He braced for death, as he had too many times before in his life. But the pincers didn't move, the large black eyes on the cutter's head not stirring either. The antennae moved around him, though, like some kind of scanner.

 _I'm about to become a cutter museum exhibit- labeled Foolish Killer._

A voice suddenly spoke from far behind him, sounding like a normal Regalian.

"How like Industria," a woman said. "Our first live visitor in ages and she succeeds in seizing it before any of the others have a chance."

A second voice responded from what seemed to be just behind Gregor.

"But how like Invidia to complain about my greater skill. Of the few of us capable of this feat, you were not born to be one of them."

A third woman joined the conversation, from yet another direction.

"Is it not so joyously ironic that Ira would have been counted among that number, if she had not insisted on that ill-fated project below Troy?"

"Hello?" Gregor asked. "Is there someone there?"

"Oh, it speaks," the third woman said haughtily. "I forgot that the Killers used our tongue."

"You are mistaken, dear sister Superbia," another, soft voice. "It is we that adapted their tongue to speak for us."

The voice from behind Gregor spoke again, with the mandibles locked in place.

"You permit her mistakes too often, Patientia. More than that, we have already drifted away from the main subject at hand. This interloper."

"This saboteur," one said sharply. "He has cost us centuries of progress, took Ira away from us, and now leads the cockroaches to our doorstep to finally end us."

A flat-toned voice announced its presence from very, very far away.

"Avaritia, you must admit that Ira brought her end upon herself. This entire episode with a rival coalition was interesting in concept but through its poor execution allowed for much of the nest to be gambled away on oddities. It was her idea to waste precious eggspace on the spitting ants and the bursting shiners."

Whoever Avaritia was, she had no response. But Gregor was getting a pretty good idea of who these voices belonged to.

"Hello again," Gregor said, trying his hardest to keep an unstrained voice. "I'm a peace envoy. My name is-"

"We know who you are, Overlander," the voice of Industria said. "There is only one of you, after all."

"Are you going to keep calling yourself 'the Victorious' after this one, squishy?" that was Superbia, taking pride in Gregor's condition.

"Are you going to keep pretending that we've won, Superbia?" the even voice said. "If the 'squishy' is not returned to his comrades, we will be drowned. At best, you could consider this a draw."

"I must second Temperantia," the soft voice of Patientia said. "Release the poor human, no harm we do to him will aid us."

"His mind could be harmed," Invidia said. "He must pride himself on a strong will. But just as we did with the bees and the snakes, we could twist his brain into whatever shape we wish."

Gregor clammed up, suddenly aware that he couldn't really feel the back of his head, frozen as he was in the grasp of the ant called Industria. Were they already inside of his skull?

The pincers released him suddenly, and Gregor cautiously turned his entire body to face the ant that had been holding him.

"My deepest thanks," Gregor said, running out of words to use in a situation like this.

"Your presence here increases our odds of survival," Industria said. "But do not think that I have totally forgotten what you did to Ira and her nest."

Gregor kept his mouth shut. Although these cutters seemed to have specially-designed voiceboxes to communicate in English, their thought processes were still 100% Cutter.

"It was naught but luck that separated us from complete control of the Underland," Superbia said. "I do not even consider you a threat, _squishy._ "

"You again neglect the fundamental roots of 'luck', sister. If we had installed the anti-flier nets from the spinners, Ira would still be with us, for whatever consequence that brings."

"The spinners asked too much for their nets," Avaritia said. "Imagine allocating so many resources for defenses against fliers if the damned bats didn't show up. The food we saved by not trading for those nets let us produce a reserve army."

"And then you and Superbia lost most of the army chasing after crawlers."

 _Wow, there's six ant queens in here and it seems like their only pasttime is to scheme and plot in between drama sessions._

"Enough of the chatter, sisters," Industria said. "Converse with the Overlander and let us find agreeable terms of peace, lest we let the cockroaches kill us here."

Gregor nodded his head, and the six cutter queens came closer together, all now visible. With thicker mandibles and fuzzy coatings across their carapaces, they really did look different from the normal kinds of ants. Something about them certainly seemed more intelligent and alive, in the way they seemed to look around and hold different postures. For example, one of them aggressively paced in front of the others.

"Agreeable terms of peace? There are none," Superbia said. "It takes the threat of the Overlander's weapons for myself not to kill him right now for daring to stand against us."

Gregor tried not to roll his eyes. This ant was a serious opposition to peace. He could only hope the rest of the queens could convince her otherwise.

"A surrender agreement would have us give away our gains in territory, perhaps even requiring us to dispose of our soldiers, what few remain. Absolutely unthinkable," Avaritia said.

 _This one is too obsessed with the number game. I've seen a few people like that back in the service. They were the ones who would always be getting frustrated._

"You are both wrong. The fact that our last nest is on the border of destruction should tell you our current state. Our territories are never coming back without a treaty. Our armies will lie dead here, anyway, if we turn away peace," Temperantia argued.

Gregor figured this made the odds 2 for peace, 2 against, with two undecided.

"I am the third to be absolutely against peace. How will we survive, surrounded by the warmbloods and their thriving territories, pressured into hiding by spinners and crawlers, even the mayflies and butterflies and snails? I would rather we all die than live a day in impoverished peace."

Invidia had predictably sided with the bad sisters.

 _So half of them would rather just die. Gregor and Luxa's Big Peace Project sure is off to a great start._

"Sisters, please," Patientia begged. "I was born and have lived these past years with nothing but the desire to live in balance and health with you all. My inherent virtue is only patience. Please, do not end all that our lives have struggled for, the untold ages of self-evolution our mothers searched for. I care not whether we live now to fight in some other time, or whether we doze peacefully for the rest of our days. But I beg you not to let yourself be destroyed by your inherent sins."

Gregor's attention was caught by the impassioned way the cutter was speaking. For whatever reason, the cutter queens must have developed emotions, because Patientia's human-like voice sounded as if she was on the verge of tears, as if she had feelings. The way she had mentioned sins and virtues as inherent was also strange. He wanted to slow down time, like when he was in the rager state, but he didn't work like that. The queens were engaged in a rapid-fire discussion between themselves.

"The question before us is a non-question. Either you choose to negotiate peace or you are a defective organism. Our generation must have been flawed, I see it now, too late to do anything about it. Ira, with her inherent sin of wrath, turned our war for territory into something else entirely. The rest of you sinners followed her into it. Even us of the virtuous could not stop it. Industria commanded battles, Patientia imposed our will on innocent minds. And I constantly probed our weaknesses. My findings, after months of study, are thus: we ourselves are the greatest weakness of the nest."

Industria spoke up, and Gregor listened to the queen who had gotten the jump on him.

"That may be true. None of us asked to be born. The queens of the past designed us, complete with our inherent drives. For what purpose? None of us can ascertain that now. The greatest question of our existence is not 'why do we exist?' but rather 'will we still exist tomorrow?'. We need a majority of us six to control the swarm and enact peace, especially with our damaged alchemical network. If not one of you will switch over, I am forced to take drastic action."

At the threat of dramatic action, two of the queens suddenly charged towards Gregor. They must have not understood his weapons, because he had more than enough time to completely destroy the structural integrity of both of their bodies with an extended burst, the last of the old soft-tip bullets disappearing into their chitin, tumbling and then fracturing apart in their soft swollen bodies. Both sides of the battling queens stopped to look in shock, with what Gregor could have interpreted as horror.

"Overlander, you killed Invidia and then Patientia. Patientia only meant to shield her sister from your attacks, to stop the fighting. You killed both of them, all the same."

Nausea hit Gregor. It was exactly like the first time he killed another person in close range. The Rager phenomenon didn't protect him from the reaction. Maybe it recognized that these large, awkward cutters were never really threats. These were people, programmed from birth to act a certain way, but still aware of themselves and their hopes and dreams like any other person he could talk to. Patientia didn't want anything more than to live with her sisters, perhaps the only innocent one of them. Invidia had her revenge, in a sense.

Whatever Superbia's sin was, it was well-matched by her power. She rammed into Industria while the queen was occupied with the dead sisters, wrestling for better positions while they nipped large gashes in each other.

Temperantia, the smart-aleck who spoke like a computer, was ill-matched against Avaritia. The enraged sister, driven mad by loss, easily tore apart the virtuous one. Gregor didn't even wait for Avaritia to face him before firing- and that was the fact that saved him.

When he pulled the trigger, the bolt seized, and then something exploded inside the chamber, with the sound of distressed metal. He tried pulling the trigger again but it wouldn't move. The internals were damaged. Avaritia continued to charge at him, and he dropped the useless weapon in haste.

His pistol did what it was supposed to do though, and his body did everything necessary to draw and fire, two nice holes right in the queen's head, where Lizzie had said the 'ganglion' was. The pincers had almost closed in on his arm, though. He was unlucky and lucky both. Hadn't one of these piles of goo formerly-known-as-ant-queen said something about luck? He felt sick, as if this sweltering, humid nest was a nightmare, the same kind he had when he was suffering in the Fount.

The last two survivors had torn each other apart in the split second it had taken for Gregor to kill Avaritia. The cumulative effect of all of the wounds they had inflicted on each other took its toll. What had once been a debate hall now looked more like the site of a massacre, their fluids flowing into the wet floor and mixing.

"For all your notions about peace, you ended up on the opposite side here," Superbia said to Gregor as he walked in on unsure feet, her voice shrill with pain. "At least I was born knowing who I was and what I was meant to do, not bludgeoning my way in the dark like you warmbloods."

The head turned to face Gregor more directly.

"You said you came in peace, but you killed most of us here anyway. Just like Sandwich. He could not handle the true Underland, so my ancestors gave him all the poison he would need to take Regalia from the diggers, as a sort of experiment. That's a squishy who knew what he was doing, prophecy included. You, though, you should have stayed at home in your woman's castle, with your blinded mate and your ill-fated half-breed. You-"

Gregor fired twice into the speaking queen, her words dying like a record would die on a turntable.

"Efficient," Industria said weakly. "Although now there aren't even enough queens to issue an armistice."

Gregor let a deep shuddering sigh pass through him, feeling the rager expelled out of him like some kind of demon. He felt terrible, mentally and physically. It felt like nothing was right. The world was terrible in a way it had only been two times before in his life. The doubts swarmed him like bees, stinging accusations overwhelming him.

"So this it it?" Gregor asked. "Was Superbia right about me being pointless?"

"This is not the end," Industria said, authoritatively. "I am about to lay an egg, the replacement for Ira."

"With the same sin as Ira?" Gregor asked.

"No, no. I gave her all of the inherent sins."

"What?"

"But I also gave her all of the inherent virtues."

"What does that make her?" Gregor asked. "To have all the sins and all the virtues inside her, from the beginning?"

"I suppose it... it makes her a person. With all the same capacities for sin and virtue that any of you have."

A white ball the size of Gregor's head rolled from the last living queen of the cutters.

"She has all the things she needs to grow and hatch," Industria said. "I have given her the same knowledge that I was given by my mother, with my own additions. She will know the sins of the cutters, but she will also know that they were the result of seven imprisoned sisters who had never seen the world. She will know what happened here, too. With time, she will wake within the egg and you may be able to speak to her."

Gregor approached the egg, touching it to find a leathery shell that completely enclosed the tiny seed of life inside. It felt almost like onionskin beneath his fingers, but he wouldn't dare try to peel it.

"Should I raise her?" Gregor asked. "Am I even the right person?"

Industria's head collapsed weakly on the floor, and the last halting words from her voice-box haunted Gregor.

"If you were not the right person, would it matter? This is the end for us, the 7-Queen cutters. You are the only one to witness us here. We die as we lived, unseen, unloved."

In the silence, inaction literally made Gregor feel like he was going insane. He felt lost, scared at himself and how his hopes had been killed alongside all the queens here, but he had to shake it. He wasn't safe yet. Gregor picked the egg up, finding it kind of dense. It wouldn't hurt to carry it, but he could imagine getting tired of lugging it around. An easy solution was found with the discarded parachute (only partially hidden under the growing pile of cutter bodies)

As soon as it was tied and secured behind his shoulder, he shouted up towards the top of the Maw. There was no response back. Either the fliers were far above the Maw, or they had been forced entirely from the area. He had enough supplies to wait until somebody decided to check down here, at the deepest point.

Or so he thought. But a sudden trickle of water at his feet quickly made him abandon that plan. Apparently the crawlers had moved ahead with their plan, thinking Gregor dead. He would have to start climbing and hope he found a better place

But the rate wasn't slowing. It seemed to be getting faster. When it came to climbing, Gregor was no slouch, but it wasn't easy to find handholds on the sheer vertical rise of the Maw. The added weight of all his gear was also slowing his progress. When his boots almost started touching water, Gregor started shedding the extra weight. His cuirass unbuckled easily, the elegant, decorated metal sinking quickly beneath the noxious water, already choked with the corpses of thousands of cutters and crawlers.

Miravet's custom-made harness for his ammo also went out and over, weighed down by all of his submachinegun magazines. The M3 was ditched, too, the inert peace of metal plummeting without a splash. It felt significant to him, maybe a personal sign. It hadn't served him like he thought it would. It was the wrong tool for his job.

His arm and leg protectors were the next to go into the poison, and he gained some speed easily with all of the metal gone discarded his body. Part of him wondered if the egg could float if he just let it drop now, but Gregor felt responsible for the little thing's fate. He had arrived to help, but had made things even worse. At the very least, he could take this egg, the last seed of hope for peace with the cutters, and find a place where it could take root.

His arms started burning from exertion around the same time that the water level started to threaten him again.

 _I should have stayed back at the palace, what was I thinking?_

Gregor kicked his pair of Overland shoes free and started to use his toes to push himself upwards on the climb.

 _This was a total defeat. I'm practically crawling out of this hole naked. If a single cutter came by right now, I don't think I'd be able to kill it._

His fears became true. His climbing was taking him to a few stragglers. Sensing his vibration on the rocks, the ants turned to him, pincers opened wide. One spat at him, a fat glob nearly missing his shoulder, burning through part of the fabric harness on his back.

With each breath, he could see the enemy all above him. He couldn't travel sideways to avoid them. The water was rising far too fast to climb down. He would have to take his chances with the toxic water, even though it was already poisoned before the hundreds of dead cutters had started soaking in it. But he'd take dead cutter poison over live cutters trying to tear him open. He could still remember Hamnet's sucking chest wound, draining him of blood like some kind of slaughtered animal.

 _Anything not to end up like that. Anything not to end like the ones who were killed._

So when the first cutter moved towards him, he got ready to drop into the clouded water below. He was too tired to fight any longer, and could not find any reasons to keep going. He prepared to give in to the ache of his body, and take his chances with the water.

That was when the air became full of fliers, diving down from the top. With outstretched claws and sharp swords, the new arrivals cut curving paths through the ants. Gregor clung tighter to the wall to avoid the pieces that fell, hearing the bats as they deftly shifted their downward momentum into the horizontal.

They went around and around the wide cylinder of the shaft, keeping even, except for one pair. The flier kept its speed up, despite diving and climbing in a wavy pattern along the walls. The human rider was a blur in his echolocation, leaning into rolls and turns to help the aerobatics while keeping a pointed rapier-like sword in position to run the largest ants through.

As the pair passed, Gregor realized that it was Luxa and Aurora. A brief image flashed through his head as her wing-wind snapped past his ear. Luxa's hair was short, but the two were unmistakable. And just behind them, Hyperion had arrived.

"Drop, Gregor!" a voice called to him. He was too tired to tell who. He let go, his fingers nearly too cramped to allow him, and he dropped.

He didn't land on Hyperion's back. Instead, he felt large claws close in on his arms, lifting him up, straight up. The large wings flapped furiously until Gregor could sense the rim of the Maw finally below him. After traveling only a little bit further towards land, Hyperion stopped flapping, letting off into a glide.

Gregor hit the ground harder and faster than he was expecting, with Hyperion skimming to a halt nearby. The two lay face-down, winded from the journey up.

"Too... exhausted... to speak," the bat said. Apparently he hadn't recovered from the long flight yet.

But Gregor didn't think he was close to recovering either. Everything had gone wrong down there. First, only half of the queens were interested in peace, even as a tool for survival. He had bet wrong. And trying to help the situation, he had killed an innocent queen. The situation had been beyond his help from the beginning.

And then he had to climb for his life, dropping most of his gear in a rush to escape. The egg had been extra weight.

 _Wait, the egg!_

Gregor managed to push himself onto his side, realizing that he couldn't feel the weight of the egg in the sling. He reached a tentative hand to his shoulder and found that the sling and his tunic was missing a large patch. The cutter that had spit at him had been close to the mark. He winced as he touched a bleeding welt on his back.

The egg was barely in the sling, but as he struggled to roll it into view, Gregor could see deep pits in the surface of the sphere where the acid from the cutter had eaten into it. He couldn't imagine that any life could have survived that. The cutters were extinct.

Alone and feeling very, very tired, he curled up, small, and wept.


	21. Chapter 21: What it Was For in the End

For Luxa, the peace plan had worked out better than they could have expected, at least in the early stages.

While Gregor left very early in the day, Luxa's summons for the council did not take nearly as long as she expected. Indeed, the departure of the king and a flight of guards had hastened the process. Even the Minister of War had agreed easily to her orders to send a group to the Maw. Whether or not they believed that a treaty could be made, they could understand how leaving their king unsupported would 'be a bad look', as Gregor himself would say.

The army had to rest briefly at Tantalus, but they were not too far behind. Even so, their arrival at the Maw did not come before Gregor had already jumped to the bottom by himself.

Aurora had suggested they follow directly, but after Gregor had descended, the cutters had begun to strike unpredictably against the crawlers. Luxa had to lead the army to save the digging crew, at the cost of valuable time.

Seeing the battle turn so poorly, the crawler commander had ordered the incomplete trough to be flooded, considering Gregor to be dead already. At that point, the army had to once again divide its efforts. Some would continue protecting the crawlers, while the best fliers would dive into the Maw, looking for the king.

She and Aurora dove to his rescue, ensuring that he was still alive, although lightly injured and without energy. But Luxa had to ensure the battle was secure before returning to his side.

When she did, she realized how dire the situation had actually become. Gregor was coated in slime like some kind of twisted newborn. His armor was gone, his feet bare, and his clothes were tattered. None of that was so worrying, and indeed it could have seemed normal after some of their past escapades.

But he was weeping, crying like she had never seen before from him, except perhaps when Ares had died or when Twitchtip was found to have perished. He was even tucked into himself like a child, silent except for the huffs of breath that escaped him while sheets of tears coated his face.

"Gregor, what is the matter?" Luxa asked, squatting beside him to examine the wound on his back. "Are you injured?"

He could not speak, but his grip felt weak as he tried to grab her arm. His face was marred by the tortured expression held therein, but he did not appear to be totally mad. He needed time to recover, and that would be costly so close to the battle. However, there was a nibbler colony nearby, re-established very recently. It was a place she could have recognized anywhere.

* * *

Aurora found the way easily, tracing the quickly-draining river up and then using landmarks to find the nibbler colony.

Luxa patted Aurora. They had spent much time here after her dislocated wing. It seemed like it would again be a place of shelter and recovery for the scores of injured from the battle. Bitten fliers and humans lay groaning in pain on the beach while helpful nibblers offered what they could in terms of aid.

The injured crawlers ate some and drank some, but there was no greater treatment than the passage of time for them.

Gregor was let down at the shore of the clear pond. In what seemed to be ages ago, he had once shown Luxa something entirely new when he had groomed Lapblood in her darkest moment. Here, he would experience something similar.

She unbuckled her greaves and dragged Gregor up to his waist in the water with her. His crying had slowed and he had lapsed into silence, nearly catatonic. When he did not stir for several moments, she began to clean him without comment.

She lifted handfuls of water to his head, soaking his now-stiffened hair. Sitting alongside him in the pond, she wiped the mess from his skin, letting the dark streamers drift away into the depths. Once the filth was cleaned off of him, she took him back to the shallows, where his head could lie on her thighs as she sat, his body soaking as he looked directly upward, not seeing her.

The survivors on the beach watched them with a polite amount of disinterest. Although his state was quite visible, the injured and their caretakers were not occupied in discussion, nor were they stunned into silence. Their king and queen were just like them there, hurt and waiting for time and Nature to take their course.

Eventually, they did.

"Luxa?" Gregor asked, eyes finally clear-seeing. "Where am I?"

"The new nibbler colony," she answered, noting the new sharpness in his eyes. He had returned. "You were... indisposed."

Gregor shut his eyes and tried to search his memories. He couldn't remember much after Hyperion had taken him out of the Maw. Then he realized the craziness hadn't been a dream. He had really been crying like a baby for hours. He opened his eyes against the shame, and found that Luxa wasn't looking at him with disgust, but with kindness.

Her hair was as short as she had first cut it for battle, so long ago. He touched its fringes, still fresh from the shears.

"It looks good," he said.

"Thank you, dearest," Luxa said. "But think you that this is the time for such talk?"

She meant it teasingly, as a reminder of older discussions. But he had taken the words deeply.

"There's nothing else to talk about," Gregor said. "Unless you really want me to go over the details of that disaster with the cutters."

"If you cannot, do not fret," Luxa said. "But I can think of few things more useful to hear at the moment."

Gregor struggled for a moment with his feelings, but knew that holding it in would do no good. He felt secure again at the lake, laying his head against her as the water cooled them.

"I really ought to tell the story," Gregor said. "I guess the problems started with the parachute."

Luxa was naturally pretty worried when she heard about the parachute, and things didn't really get better from there. He had found the room where the cutter queens stayed, but was unable to get them all to agree on a surrender.

The part where a fight broke out and Gregor accidentally shot an innocent queen still made him choke up with bitterness.

"The last of them wasn't going to make it, but she laid an egg," Gregor said. "But I couldn't even keep that safe."

He pointed to the egg, which was bobbing along the surface of the water, its surface marred with holes and dark splotches from caustic burns. Luxa took it in her hands, and instantly noticed something about it. But before she could mention it, Gregor had more to say.

"I've been feeling pretty down," he said. "Ripred's vanished, Hazard's granddad is dying, and I'm next to useless as a king."

She stroked his cheek. He hadn't shared any of those worries with her. But likewise, she had shared little of her worries with him.

"The absence of our greatest remaining teacher and friend worried me briefly," Luxa said soothingly. "But this is not the first time he has departed without notice in recent memory. I am sure he has not truly deserted us."

Gregor squinted as if he doubted her words, but his body did seem to relax a very small amount.

"I am aggrieved to hear that Hazard might lose his grand-father so soon after meeting him. But surely it is better that they met, even if their time was so short."

A heartbeat passed and he was more at ease.

"And what is this about you failing as a king?" She asked. "Only your reputation spurred the army into quick action. The cutters may not have survived, but our intervention saved many of the others."

Luxa picked up the egg and seated it softly on Gregor's chest.

"Whatever horrors happened in their nest, you persevered valiantly and did not fail in carrying this last egg out of danger. Only the surface is damaged. It will live."

That was the revelation that freed him from the weight of failure and frustration. All was not lost. Luxa decided to use this moment to surprise him with the most affecting news.

"As far as kingly duties are concerned, you were also successful in another," she said.

When his eyes looked into hers with confusion, she answered only by lightly pressing his head into her belly. His eyes opened wide in realization, and she nodded, feeling a bright smile break out from within her. It had been a hard day, but the moment was nearly enough to make it all better.

The army slowly started to pull in from the battleground. The danger had passed. With the humans holding torches on their fliers, they resembled dancing stars high above the Jungle clearing. And although the new arrivals were very much interested in the Queen and King of Regalia and their business in the lake, neither Gregor nor Luxa moved a muscle, enjoying the comfort of each other in the water.

The vigil was eventually interrupted by a horde of nibbler pups rushing to swim, and the splashing of bathing soldiers, but the feeling of peace and security remained. The colony had once been deserted, its residents driven to a place of no return, but life had returned.

They knew that peace would not be forever, and it would not be easy to maintain. But for as long as they could fight for it, they would. It wouldn't be as perfect as this moment, but it could probably come close.

The time for life anew had begun.


	22. Chapter 22 : Epilogue

Boots found an envelope on the doorstep, with a strange sequence of words scribbled on it. "Gregor, Luxa, Stella". She quickly returned inside, being careful not to let the door slam, since baby Adrian was sleeping in the bassinet.

"Mom, Dad!" she shouted in a whisper. "Gregor sent us mail again!"

The family gathered in the kitchen, far enough away not to disturb the napping child. Boots tore the envelope open, emptying a stack of instant photos onto the countertop.

The first photo was of Gregor holding hands with Luxa, as the two stood up on some kind of stage. They were both beaming, their smiles giant and spontaneous.

"This must be that wedding ceremony he told us about," Dad said.

Boots checked her mom's reaction. She was crying, seeing her son's wedding.

The next photo was of them kneeling as they pressed rings onto each other's fingers. It was a lot more serious than the last picture, but probably because their faces were wrapped up in concentration.

"The family ring was the only thing we had to give him," his Dad said. "But it looks like it worked out."

The next shot was from more than a month later, it seemed, because Gregor's face was covered in a fresh beard. He and Luxa were standing with a few bats, a few mice, and one very large rat. The rat had a few fresh scabs and scrapes, but it looked like he was almost happy.

"That's Ripred, right?" Boots asked. "He looks like a real tough customer."

"That's the whole gang, Ripred included," Mom said. "He is a lot nicer than he looks."

The next picture was of a newborn baby awake, eyes focused on the camera flash. She was a real cutie-patootie, even with her skin transparent like rice-paper. Someone had added the word 'Stella' to the bottom of the picture. It wasn't difficult to understand why she was named that. The baby had a sizable purple birthmark on her forehead in the shape of a 9-pointed star, in between two arched dark eyebrows.

"Oh," Mom said, unable to bring any more words. "Oh, oh, oh. She's beautiful."

A few more photos followed. One of the mother, Luxa, looking sweaty but happy. Then the camera was turned to face Gregor, looking red-eyed and tearful. He happened to be wearing a crown. Boots had never seen him with a crown on. Everyone had to admit, it looked downright natural on him, just like the newfound smile on his face.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note: The End. I've probably spent too much time writing this, and just as much time editing it (which is the more draining task by far). But in the end, it is what it is. A happy ending takes some doing, it turns out. On the subject of time, thank you, dear readers, for lending it here. Your presence and your words grant meaning to my work.**_

 _ **The serendipitous series of coincidences that gave me the time and drive to publish this have certainly worn off for now. I'll follow the rain where it blows, but it certainly seems to be heading away for the moment. Once again, thank you. And once again, farewell.**_


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